Every census must adapt to the decade in which it is administered. New technologies emerge and change the way the U.S. Census Bureau collects and processes data. More importantly, changing lifestyles and emerging sensitivities among the people of the United States necessitate modifications to the questions that are asked. One of the most important changes for Census 2000 was the revision of the questions on race and Hispanic origin to better reflect the country’s growing diversity

This report, part of a series that analyzes population and housing data collected from Census 2000, provides a portrait of race and Hispanic origin in the United States and discusses their distributions at the national level. It is based on the Census 2000 Redistricting (Public Law 94- 171) Summary File, which is among the first Census 2000 data products to be released and is used by each state to draw boundaries for legislative districts.¹

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¹ This report includes data for 50 states and the District of Columbia, but not Puerto Rico. The Census 2000 Redistricting (Public Law 94-171) Summary File will be released on a state-by-state basis in March 2001. It does not contain data for specific Hispanic origin groups (for example, Mexican or Puerto Rican) or specific race groups or tribes (for example, Chinese, Samoan, or Cherokee), and therefore these specific groups are not discussed in this report.