COUNTY POPULATION
The population of Kent County was estimated by the Census Bureau at 599,524 residents as of July 2006. That was an increase of 0.5 percent from a year earlier and 4.4 percent above the 2000 Census.
Net international migration data understate the impact of immigration, because the children born to immigrants after their arrival are recorded as domestic population change -- not part of the immigrant settlement data.
According to the 2006 Census Bureau estimate, Kent County's population had increased since July 2000 despite a population loss from net domestic migration (an annual average of about 3,200 more native-born residents leaving than arriving). This was offset by natural change (an annual average of about 5,110 more births than deaths and net international migration (an annual average of about 2,365 more foreign-born residents arriving than leaving). Therefore, immigration was the smallest component of population change, but it accounted directly for more than half (59.1%) of the County’s population increase over this period.
The 2000 Census recorded 574,335 residents in the County. This was a 14.7 percent increase above the 500,631 residents in the 1990 Census. During the previous decade, the County population increased by 12.6 percent from 444,506 in 1980.
FOREIGN-BORN POPULATION
The 2000 census recorded 38,154 foreign-born residents in Kent County. That was a 6.6 percent share of the overall population, which was higher than the 5.3 percent share for the state. The 2000 data showed an increase of 138.2 percent in the immigrant population since 1990, which compared with a ten percent increase in the native-born population (which includes children born to immigrants) over the same period.
In 2000, the Census recorded that more than half (58.4%) of the County's foreign-born population had entered since 1990. This was much higher than the share for the state overall (44.9%). Less than one-third (31.6%) of the foreign-born residents had become naturalized U.S. citizens. This was much lower than the rate for the state overall (45.8%).
Another indicator of the impact of the foreign-born population may be seen in data on residents who speak a language other than English at home. In the County in 2000, the share of other-than-English speakers at home (age 5 and older) was 10.2 percent. Nearly half (48.1%) of those persons admitted to speaking English less than very well.
In 1990, the county's foreign-born population was about 15,800 residents (4.4% of the total state immigrant population). The foreign-born share of the county's overall population population was 3.2 percent. By comparison, the foreign-born population shares of the country and the state in 1990, respectively, were 7.9 percent and 3.8 percent.
LEGAL IMMIGRATION
A study released by the Center for Immigration Studies in October 2001 indicated that there were 6,471 legal immigrants who indicated that they intended to settle in Kent County between FY'91-'98. This number did not include persons granted legal immigrant status as a result of the 1986 amnesty for illegal aliens. The ten countries that supplied the largest number of these new immigrants are shown below.
