Virginia Demographics

The center of population of Virginia is located in Goochland County [5].

As of 2006, Virginia had an estimated population of 7,642,884, which is an increase of 78,557, or 1.0%, from the prior year and an increase of 563,854, or 8.0%, since the year 2000. This includes a natural increase since the last census of 276,039 people (that is 633,794 births minus 357,755 deaths) and an increase from net migration of 276,292 people into the commonwealth. Immigration from outside the United States resulted in a net increase of 151,748 people, and migration within the country produced a net increase of 124,544 people. The commonwealth has 940,899 residents who were born outside the United States (8.14% of the population), while 99,104 were born in a different state.

Also in 2006, 6.58% of Virginia's population were reported as under 5 years old, 24.6% under 18, and 11.2% were senior citizens-65+. Females made up over half of the population.

The five largest reported ancestry groups in Virginia are: African (19.6%), German (11.7%), American (11.2%), English (11.1%), Irish (9.8%).

Historically, as the largest and wealthiest colony and state and the birthplace of Southern and American culture, a large proportion (about half) of Virginia's population was made up of black slaves who worked its tobacco, cotton, and hemp plantations. Initially, these slaves came from west central Africa, primarily Angola. During the eighteenth century, however, about half of them derived from various ethnicities located in the Niger Delta region of modern day Nigeria. The twentieth century Great Migration of blacks from the rural South to the urban North reduced Virginia's black population to about 20%. Though when Douglas Wilder became governor of Virginia on January 13, 1990, he became the first African-American to serve as governor of a U.S. state since Reconstruction.

Today, African-Americans are concentrated in the eastern and southern Tidewater and Piedmont regions where plantation agriculture was the most dominant. The western mountains are populated primarily by people of British ancestry. People of German descent are present in sizable numbers in the northwestern mountains and Shenandoah Valley. And because of recent immigration, there is a rapidly growing population of Hispanics (particularly Central Americans) and Asians in the northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, DC. In addition, the Hampton Roads area, in particular, has a large Filipino population, and Northern Virginia has the largest Vietnamese population on the east coast, with slightly over 99,000 Vietnamese migrants.

The religious affiliations of the people of Virginia are:

• Christian – 76%
  • Protestant – 49%
    • Baptist – 30%
    • Methodist – 7%
    • Episcopal – 3%
    • Presbyterian – 3%
    • Lutheran – 2%
    • Pentecostal – 2%
    • Other Protestant or general Protestant – 2%
  • Roman Catholic – 14%
  • Other Christian – 13%
• Jewish – 1%
• Muslim – 1%
• Other religions 4%
• Non-religious – 12%[8]

Virginia is prominently Protestant; Baptists account as the largest single group with 32.1% of the population being members. Roman Catholics are the second-largest group, and also the third fastest growing. Islam, the second fastest growing group, accounts for 0.99% of the population. Buddhism and Hinduism combined form the fastest group, and largest of the "Other Religions" shown above, accounting for 1.00% of the population. About 50.0% of those practicing non-Christian faiths come from India, 5.50% from China, 3.70% from the Middle East, 2.20% from Guyana, 0.1% from Sri Lanka, and 37.9% from other nations.

Virginia Population Density Map