SEATTLE — King County continued to grow more racially and ethnically diverse in 2022, according to data released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau.
The new data also revealed this diversification is happening at a rapid pace because of two concurrent demographic trends: The number of people of color in the county is growing, while the number of white people is shrinking.
From July 1, 2021, to July 1, 2022, King County’s total population increased by nearly 14,000. The data released Thursday shows 100% of that net gain was from people of color.
The number of people of color in King County grew by about 31,200 last year, or 3.1%. At the same time, the number of non-Hispanic white people in the county fell by about 17,400, a decline of 1.4%.
That said, King County remains a majority-white county. The nearly 1.25 million white residents in the county represented 55% of the total population last year, down from 56.1% in 2021. If the current trend continues, King County will not have a single majority racial or ethnic group by the end of the decade.
A number of cities in the county already do not have a racial or ethnic majority group. Many of these are in the South End, including Renton, Federal Way, Kent, Burien, Tukwila and SeaTac. On the Eastside, Bellevue, Redmond and Newcastle do not have a racial or ethnic majority group. But Seattle, the county’s largest city, is around 60% non-Hispanic white.
Asian people were the fastest-growing racial group in King County last year, with an increase of 4%, which pencils out to a net gain of about 20,000 people — the largest numeric increase in the Asian population of any U.S. county in 2022, according to the Census Bureau.
The Asian population reached 485,000 last year, representing more than 21% of the county’s total population.
Immigration to King County, which in 2022 rebounded from the pandemic, has been the primary driver of growth for the county’s Asian population.
The county’s Hispanic population had the second-highest growth rate at 2.6%, or a net gain of about 6,000 people. Hispanic people made up 10.5% of the population in 2022.
The Black population had the county’s third-highest growth rate, at 2.1%, or about 3,200 people. Black people made up nearly 7% of the total population last year.
King County’s multiracial and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander populations both increased at less than 2%, and the Native American/Alaska Native population was unchanged in 2022.
The white population was the only racial or ethnic group that shrank in 2022. All others either grew or were unchanged from 2021.
A big factor behind the declining white population is age: Among the largest racial and ethnic groups, white people have the highest median age in King County, at around 42 years in 2021. For all other groups, the median was below 40, and for Hispanic and multiracial people, it was below 30. An older population, of course, means a higher death rate and lower birthrate.
King County has also been losing population because of people leaving to other counties. We don’t have a breakdown of movers by race, but we do know from an earlier release of census data that King County had a net decline of 16,000 people through domestic migration in 2022 — in other words, the number who moved away to other U.S. counties exceeded the number who moved here by 16,000.
