Spendlove said Utah is becoming more racially and ethnically diverse, noting that the state's Hispanic population alone grew by 138 percent during the 1990s.

"While we don't produce official projections of Hispanic growth, Utah should definitely mirror national trends in minority growth, specifically Hispanic growth, and maybe even surpass it," Spendlove said, though he noted that Utah won't be approaching a majority-minority situation anytime soon.

The statewide growth rate for non-Hispanic whites was 4.8 percent, from April 1, 2000, to a July 1, 2004, population of 1.9 million.

The remaining 386,501 Utahns are minorities, and the fastest-growing and largest minority group was Hispanic, which grew by 25.6 percent to 253,073.

Other fast-growing groups included Asian, which grew by 15.5 percent; a 12.4 percent increase in those who identified themselves as two or more races, and a 10.6 percent increase in the black population.

Utah has just one county in which minorities are majorities— San Juan County, where non Hispanic Native Americans comprise about 55 percent of the population, a slight decrease since 2000.

With it's percentage of minorities at nearly 21 percent, Salt Lake County is the state's most rapidly diversifying county.

"It's very diverse by Utah standards," Spendlove said. "By national standards, it's not quite as diverse."

In Salt Lake County, with an overall estimated population of 935,295, every minority group identified in the census outpaced the white, non-Hispanic growth of 1 percent from April 1, 2000, to July 1, 2004.

Much of the state's growing diversity is found in the rural counties of Wasatch, Summit, Millard and Grand, though those counties each remain 87 percent to 90 percent white, non-Hispanic.

Weber County is also increasingly diverse, with an estimated 19 percent minorities in 2004, an increase of 1.9 percent since 2000.

Utah County's July 1, 2004, percentage of about 88 percent white, non-Hispanic is a 2 percent decrease since 1990.

While much of the state saw increasing diversity, white, non-Hispanic growth outpaced minorities in 10 counties. Kane County saw the state's greatest increase in its share of white, non-Hispanics.

The July 1, 2004, white, non-Hispanic population in Kane County was estimated at about 96 percent of the population, an increase of about 1 percent from April 1, 2000.

The Census Bureau develops state and county population estimates by characteristics using administrative records on births, deaths and migration to estimate population change from the most recent census.

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E-mail: dbulkeley@desnews.com