from staff
Latin America and Asia are the regions of the largest percentage of foreign-born people in the five-county Jacksonville area.
The U.S. Census Bureau reports that the total percentage of the foreign-born population rose to 8 percent in 2009, from about 7 percent in 2007 and 2008. That population rose to 106,029 in 2009 from about 90,000 the prior two years.
Of that foreign-born population, 36.3 percent of the people were from Latin America in 2009 and 33.5 percent were from Asia.
The percentage of the area’s foreign-born population from Europe has been declining, from 25.3 percent in 2007 to 22.1 percent in 2009.
Meanwhile, the U.S. citizenship status of the foreign-born population has changed slightly. The percentage who are naturalized U.S. citizens was a little more than 51 percent in 2008 and 2009, down from almost 54 percent in 2007.
The percentage who are not U.S. citizens rose to more than 48 percent from 46 percent.
The Daily Record is presenting a series of Jacksonville facts from the U.S. Census Bureau for 2007, 2008 and 2009 for Baker, Clay, Duval, Nassau and St. Johns counties.
The national recession began in December 2007 and was declared over as of of June 2009.
| Population | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 |
| Total population | 1,296,676 | 1,315,218 | 1,327,812 |
| Native | 1,205,272 | 1,226,242 | 1,221,783 |
| Percentage of total | 93% | 93.2% | 92% |
| Foreign-born | 91,404 | 88,976 | 106,029 |
| Percentage of total | 7% | 6.8% | 8% |
Region of birth of foreign-born
| 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | |
| Europe | 25.3% | 22.3% | 22.1% |
| Asia | 34.4% | 31.1% | 33.5% |
| Africa | 2.8% | 5.8% | 4.2% |
| Oceania | 0.2% | 0.6% | 0.7% |
| Latin America | 33.8% | 36.5% | 36.3% |
| North America | 2.6% | 3.7% | 3.1% |
U.S. citizenship status of foreign-born population
| 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | |
| Naturalized U.S. citizen | 49,235 | 45,671 | 54,699 |
| Percentage | 53.9% | 51.3% | 51.6% |
| Not a U.S. citizen | 42,169 | 43,305 | 51,330 |
| Percentage | 46.1% | 48.7% | 48.4% |