Historical populations
Census year	Population
1800	1,250
1810	9,046
1820	127,901
1830	309,527
1840	590,756
1850	771,623
1860	964,201
1870	996,992
1880	1,262,505
1890	1,513,401
1900	1,828,697
1910	2,138,093
1920	2,348,174
1930	2,646,248
1940	2,832,961
1950	3,061,743
1960	3,266,740
1970	3,444,165
1980	3,893,888
1990	4,040,587
2000	4,447,100

Population

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Alabama's 2000 population was 4,447,100. As of 2006, Alabama has an estimated population of 4,599,030, which is an increase of 50,703, or 1.1%, from the prior year and an increase of 151,679 or 3.4%, since the year 2000. This includes a natural increase since the last census of 87,818 people (that is 375,808 births minus 287,990 deaths) and an increase due to net migration of 73,178 people into the state. Immigration from outside the United States resulted in a net increase of 30,537 people, and migration within the country produced a net increase of 42,641 people.

As of 2004 Alabama had 108,000 foreign-born (2.4% of the state population), of which an estimated 22.2% were illegal aliens (24,000).

In 2006, Alabama has a larger percentage of tobacco smokers than the national average, with 23% of adults smoking.

Race and ancestry

The racial makeup of the state and comparison to the prior census:

The largest reported ancestry groups in Alabama: African American (26.0%), English

British American

British Americans are citizens of the United States whose ancestry originates wholly or partly in the United Kingdom . The term is seldom used by people to refer to themselves and is used primarily as a demographic or historical research term...

 (23.6%), Irish

Irish American

Irish Americans are citizens of the United States who can trace their ancestry to Ireland. A total of 36,278,332 Americans—estimated at 11.9% of the total population—reported Irish ancestry in the 2008 American Community Survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau...

 (7.7%), German

German American

German Americans are citizens of the United States of German ancestry and comprise about 51 million people, or 17% of the U.S. population, the country's largest self-reported ancestral group...

 (5.7%), and Scots-Irish

Scots-Irish American

Scotch-Irish Americans are an estimated 250,000 Presbyterian and other Protestant dissenters from the Irish province of Ulster who immigrated to North America primarily during the colonial era and their descendants. Some scholars also include the 150,000 Ulster Protestants who immigrated to...

 (2.0%). 'American' includes those reported as Native American or African American

African American

African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

.

Ethnicity/Ancestry

Historically, African Americans were brought to Alabama as slaves

Slavery

Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...

, in greatest numbers in the cotton-producing plantation region known as the Black Belt

Black Belt (region of Alabama)

The Black Belt is a region of the U.S. state of Alabama, and part of the larger Black Belt Region of the Southern United States, which stretches from Texas to Maryland. The term originally referred to the region underlain by a thin layer of rich, black topsoil developed atop the chalk of the Selma...

. This region remains predominantly African American, where many freedmen settled to work at agriculture after the Civil War. The northern part of the state, originally settled by small farmers with fewer slaves, is predominantly European American

European American

A European American is a citizen or resident of the United States who has origins in any of the original peoples of Europe...

. The Port of Mobile, founded by the French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 and subsequently controlled by England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

, and the United States, has long had an ethnically diverse population. It has long served as an entry point for various groups settling in other parts of the state. Those citing "American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

" ancestry in Alabama are of overwhelmingly English

English American

English Americans are citizens or residents of the United States whose ancestry originates wholly or partly in England....

 extraction, however most English American

English American

English Americans are citizens or residents of the United States whose ancestry originates wholly or partly in England....

s identify simply as having American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 ancestry because their roots have been in North America for so long, in many cases since the early sixteen hundreds. Demographers estimate that a minimum of 20-23% of people in Alabama are of predominantly English

English American

English Americans are citizens or residents of the United States whose ancestry originates wholly or partly in England....

 ancestry and state that the figure is probably much higher. In the 1980 census 1,139,976 people in Alabama cited that they were of English

English American

English Americans are citizens or residents of the United States whose ancestry originates wholly or partly in England....

 ancestry out of a total state population of 2,824,719 making them 41% of the state at the time and the largest ethnic group. There are also many more people in Alabama of Scots-Irish

Scots-Irish American

Scotch-Irish Americans are an estimated 250,000 Presbyterian and other Protestant dissenters from the Irish province of Ulster who immigrated to North America primarily during the colonial era and their descendants. Some scholars also include the 150,000 Ulster Protestants who immigrated to...

 origins than are self-reported. Many people in Alabama claim Irish ancestry because of the term "Scots-Irish", but most of the time in Alabama this term is used for those with Scottish roots, rather than Irish.

Rankings

Among the 50 states and the District of Columbia, Alabama ranks:

• 32nd in its percentage of Whites
• 7th in its percentage of Blacks
  Black people
  The term black people is used in systems of racial classification for humans of a dark skinned phenotype, relative to other racial groups.Different societies apply different criteria regarding who is classified as "black", and often social variables such as class, socio-economic status also plays a...
  
  
• 43rd in its percentage of Hispanics
• 44th in its percentage of Asians
• 26th in its percentage of American Indians
• 48th in its percentage of people of Mixed race
• 47th in its percentage of males
• 5th in its percentage of females

Religion

The religious affiliations of the people of Alabama are as follows:

• Christian
  Christian
  A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
  
   – 84%
  • Protestant – 63%
    • Baptist
      Baptist
      Baptists comprise a group of Christian denominations and churches that subscribe to a doctrine that baptism should be performed only for professing believers , and that it must be done by immersion...
      
       – 37%
    • Methodist – 9%
    • Presbyterian – 3%
    • Episcopalian
      Episcopal Church (United States)
      The Episcopal Church is a mainline Anglican Christian church found mainly in the United States , but also in Honduras, Taiwan, Colombia, Ecuador, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, the British Virgin Islands and parts of Europe...
      
       – 2%
    • Church of God
      Church of God (Huntsville, Alabama)
      The Church of God is a Pentecostal holiness body of Christians, once based in Huntsville, Alabama.The Church of God shares a common history with the Church of God of Prophecy up until their division in 1943. The Church of God was led by Ambrose J. Tomlinson until his death...
      
       – 2%
    • Church of Christ
      Church of Christ
      Churches of Christ are autonomous Christian congregations associated with one another through common beliefs and practices. They seek to base doctrine and practice on the Bible alone, and seek to be New Testament congregations as originally established by the authority of Christ. Historically,...
      
       – 2%
    • Pentecostal – 2%
    • Lutheran – 2%
    • Non-denominational – 1%
    • Congregational – 1%
    • Seventh-day Adventist
      Seventh-day Adventist Church
      The Seventh-day Adventist Church is a Protestant Christian denomination distinguished by its observance of Saturday, the original seventh day of the Judeo-Christian week, as the Sabbath, and by its emphasis on the imminent second coming of Jesus Christ...
      
       – 1%
    • Protestant - no denomination supplied – 1%
  • Catholic
    Catholic
    The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
    
     – 13%
  • Jehovah's Witnesses
    Jehovah's Witnesses
    Jehovah's Witnesses is a millenarian restorationist Christian denomination with nontrinitarian beliefs distinct from mainstream Christianity. The religion reports worldwide membership of over 7 million adherents involved in evangelism, convention attendance of over 12 million, and annual...
    
     – 1%
  • LDS – 1%
  • Christian - no denomination supplied – 6%
• Jewish – 1%
• Other religions – 3%
• No religion – 6%
• Refused – 6%

Language

As of 2000, 96.7% of Alabama residents age 5 and older speak English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 at home and 2.2% speak Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

. German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

 speakers make up only 0.4% of the population, French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

/French Creole

French-based creole languages

A French Creole, or French-based Creole language, is a creole language based on the French language, more specifically on a 17th century koiné French extant in Paris, the French Atlantic harbors, and the nascent French colonies...

 at 0.3%, and Chinese

Chinese language

The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...

 at 0.1%.

Age & Sex

As of 2000, 25.3% of residents of the state were under 18, 6.7% were under 5, and 13.0% were over 65.

51.7% of Alabamians are female

Female

Female is the sex of an organism, or a part of an organism, which produces non-mobile ova .- Defining characteristics :The ova are defined as the larger gametes in a heterogamous reproduction system, while the smaller, usually motile gamete, the spermatozoon, is produced by the male...

 and 48.3% are male

Male

Male refers to the biological sex of an organism, or part of an organism, which produces small mobile gametes, called spermatozoa. Each spermatozoon can fuse with a larger female gamete or ovum, in the process of fertilization...

, there is a surplus of 600,000 women in the prime marriage age range of 25-44.

External links

• 2000 Census of Population and Housing for Alabama, U.S. Census Bureau