Florida city ranked 'least diverse' has among highest concentration of Latinos. It's not Miami

Lianna Norman, USA TODAY NETWORK - Florida
·3 min read
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The U.S. has long-been known by anthropologists and demographers for being some kind of “melting pot” of racial and ethnic diversity.

And Florida, especially South Florida, is known to attract a large number of Latino immigrants, because of its proximity to places like Cuba and Puerto Rico.

According to the most recent data on Florida’s demographics from the U.S. Census Bureau, almost 30% of Floridians are Latino – that’s roughly 6,104,896 people, based on the Census Bureau’s July 2023 population estimate for Florida.

If you’re from or live in South Florida, you might know that Hialeah is a predominantly Latino suburb of Miami.

Personal finance company WalletHub just conducted a study on the most and least ethnically diverse cities in the country and found Hialeah to be one of the least ethnically diverse towns in the U.S. – or should we say one of the most Latino towns in the U.S.?

Here’s a breakdown of Hialeah’s demographics, WalletHub’s list of the most and least ethnically diverse cities in the country and the difference between ethnicity and nationality.

What is the least diverse city in America?

To find its rankings, WalletHub compared U.S. Census Bureau data for each of the 500 largest cities in the U.S., analyzing residents’ ethnicity and race, language and birthplace.

Here’s WalletHub’s list of the least ethnically diverse cities in the U.S.:

  1. Clarksburg, West Virginia

  2. Parkersburg, West Virginia

  3. Hialeah, Florida

  4. Barre, Vermont

  5. Butte-Silver Bow, Montana

  6. Laredo, Texas

  7. Laconia, New Hampshire

  8. Rutland, Vermont

  9. Watertown, South Dakota

  10. Wheeling, West Virginia

What is the most diverse city in America?

Here’s WalletHub’s list of the most ethnically diverse cities in the U.S.:

  1. Gaithersburg, Maryland

  2. Jersey City, New Jersey

  3. Germantown, Maryland

  4. Silver Spring, Maryland

  5. Kent, Washington

  6. Spring Valley, Nevada

  7. New York, New York

  8. Rockville, Maryland

  9. Federal Way, Washington

  10. San Jose, California

What is the ethnic makeup of Hialeah, Florida?

Hialeah’s 2023 population estimate is not yet posted in the U.S. Census Bureau's breakdown of the city’s demographics, but a population count from 2022 reports 220,292 residents – 95.4% of which are Latino, according to the Census Bureau.

Of the 500 cities included in WalletHub’s study, Hialeah has the lowest concentration of white people who don’t identify as Hispanic or Latino, the lowest concentration of people who speak English (around 7%) and the highest concentration of people who speak Spanish (around 92%).

Hialeah was also the city with the highest concentration of residents who were born outside of the U.S. – WalletHub reports around 74%.

Are nationality and ethnicity the same thing?

No. Nationality and ethnicity are not the same thing, just like race and ethnicity are different things entirely.

Race categorizes people based on certain physical traits, like the color of their skin. Nationality categorizes people by the country they were born in or are a citizen of. Ethnicity categorizes people by cultural identity (the language, heritage, religion and customs of a geographic region).

For example: Puerto Rican, Cuban and Costa Rican are all examples of nationality. Latino is an ethnicity.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Florida has a city ranked least diverse for high Latino population