Illinois : Demographics

Native American population is concentrated mostly in Chicago. By 1940, Illinois had a black population of 387,000. Extensive wartime and postwar migration brought the total in 2000 to 1,876,875, of whom more than half lived within the city of Chicago, which was close to 40% black. Smaller numbers of black Illinoisans lived in Peoria, Rockford, and certain Chicago suburbs. The Hispanic population grew only after the 1960s. In 2000, the number Hispanics and Latinos was 1,530,262, living chiefly in Chicago representing 12.3% of the total state population. Mexicans numbered about 1,144,390 in 2000 while Puerto Ricans were 157,851 and Cubans were 18,438. In 2000 there were 76,725 Chinese in Illinois, 20,379 Japanese, 86,298 Filipinos, 51,453 Koreans, and 19,101 Vietnamese. There is lso a good presence of Scandinavians, Irish, Lithuanians, Serbs, Eastern European Jews, Ukrainians, Slovaks, Hungarians, Czechs, Greeks, and Dutch.