Texas’s rate of population growth has exceeded the nation’s in every decade since Texas became a state (1845), and recent population increases have been substantial. The state’s population has more than doubled in the past 25 years, from roughly 11.2 million to more than 23 million. Estimates based on recent growth rates suggest the state is growing by nearly 500,000 people annually.

Interestingly enough, this growth has been anything but uniform, with some counties in West Texas losing as much as 22 percent of their population while others around Dallas and Austin grow by more than 35 percent. Perhaps most significant are major population increases in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, with growth rates continually nearing 40 percent and birth rates significantly higher than the rest of the state. As a result, Texas has the country’s second-highest Hispanic population, behind California. Also of interest is the considerably younger age of the state’s Hispanic population (25.5 years for the median age versus 38 for Anglos). The effect on Texas’s population is a statewide median age of 32.3, the second youngest in the country to Utah.