The ethnic composition of Florida has changed over the last 100 years.  The percentage of blacks in Florida's total population has declined steadily throughout the twentieth century, to 14 percent in 1990.  The decline during the past decade, however, was less than 1 percent.  The precipitous drop earlier in the century in the percentage of blacks in the state's population was because fewer blacks than whites or Hispanics moved to Florida and because many blacks left the state.  Today black in-migration is greater than out-migration.  In addition, naturalÊincrease among blacks exceeds that of both non-Hispanic whites and Hispanics.  As a consequences, the group today is growing nearly as fast as the other two groups.  Many blacks have settled in Florida's larger cities, especially Miami, Jacksonville, Ft. Lauderdale, St. Petersburg, Orlando, and Tampa.  In 1990 the percentage of blacks was also relatively high in the north Florida counties where cotton was grown.  During the nineteenth century many of these  counties contained more blacks than whites.  Today only Gadsden County has so high a share of blacks.
    Since 1959 hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans have immigrated to Florida.  In 1990, 12.2 percent of the state's population was Hispanic, up from 8.8 percent in 1980 and 6.6 percent in 1970.  Hispanics are heavily concentrated in Dade County, where they accounted for 49.2 percent of the county's population in 1990.  Recently the number of Hispanics, most working as farm laborers, has significantly increased in many rural counties on the peninsula.
    The "other" category includes, among others, American Indians, Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Filipinos, and Asian Indians.  The state's Chinese population grew from 3,133 in 1970 to 30,737 in 1990.  Several other groups have almost equaled the Chinese in population growth.  Asians of all types have mainly settled in large urban areas.  The largest percentages of American Indians are found in counties south of Lake Okeechobee.