Black Belt & Regions
Black America in the West: The Movement Plate
The West is one of the four great regions of the federal statistical system, and its Black population — about 4.9 million residents, alone or in combination, roughly 9.3% of the national total of 52.8 million — gives it a distinct place in every national table. In the West, this plate reads the region's Black movement as a single geography, state by state and then whole.
The Region State by State
In America in the West, that national movement pattern arrives as local gain or loss, and the table below fixes the population it describes. The region's largest Black populations are held by California (2.8 million), Washington (490,000), Arizona (460,000), Nevada (385,000), Colorado (285,000). The table is where the general pattern becomes the West's own figures.
Reading the Region
For America in the West, the national movement figures are the current; the state's own distribution, tabled below, is where the current lands. Here, on the plate for the West, regional figures in this atlas are built from the published state counts, rounded as the source agencies publish them; small states whose profile figures are published in rounded thousands can move a regional total at the margin, and the plate treats the total as the published sum it is. In the West, the comparison the plate invites is therefore two-sided: the national currents on one side, the state's arrivals and departures on the other.
In America in the West, that national movement pattern arrives as local gain or loss, and the table below fixes the population it describes. The four regional plates of this section are companions: read together, they divide the national total of 52.8 million Black residents, alone or in combination, without remainder — every state stands in exactly one region, and every region's total is the sum of its states. The general pattern means little until the table resolves it into the West's numbers.
The migration currents read locally in America in the West, where the state rows below set the population whose movement the national pattern frames. Read this plate together with its companions. The benchmark's work is location, not rank: it fixes where the West stands so the plate can be read.
The migration currents read locally in America in the West, where the state rows below set the population whose movement the national pattern frames. Here, on the plate for the West, what the federal record cannot do is count a place's meaning — only its people. For the West, read with the table, the general pattern and the local figures correct each other.
For America in the West, the national movement figures are the current; the state's own distribution, tabled below, is where the current lands. Here, on the plate for the West, an atlas earns its keep in the comparisons it makes possible. For the West, the plate's own table is where this general material meets the specific geography, and the two should be read together.
For America in the West, the national movement figures are the current; the state's own distribution, tabled below, is where the current lands. Here, on the plate for the West, the figures here are the published ones, rounded as the source agencies round them, and they describe the population as the federal record counts it: residents, in place, on the reference dates of the census and the survey. It is in the rows below — the West's own — that the general material becomes a specific place.
The Regional Frame
The migration currents read locally in America in the West, where the state rows below set the population whose movement the national pattern frames. Here, on the plate for the West, a region is the largest geography most readers carry in their heads whole, and the federal system obliges by publishing its statistics in regional frames as faithfully as in state ones. Read for the West, read with the table, the general pattern and the local figures correct each other.
What follows is the plate the atlas files as Black America in the West: The Movement Plate. A note on this plate's figures, stated once and plainly: Black residents of the West, alone or in combination (sum of state counts): 4.9 million; Share of the national Black population: 9.3%; Black residents of the United States, alone or in combination (Census Bureau population estimates): 52.8 million. In the West, the figures are the argument; the text only keeps them in order.
How this plate is read, for America in the West: begin with the map, whose shading bands the published Black share into the legend's five classes, then turn to the table, which states the measures in figures — Black residents of the West, alone or in combination (sum of state counts): 4.9 million; Share of the national Black population: 9.3%. In the West, the two presentations are one record in two forms, and a reader who checks one against the other has the plate's whole method in hand.
| Measure | Figure |
|---|---|
| Black residents of the West, alone or in combination (sum of state counts) | 4.9 million |
| Share of the national Black population | 9.3% |
| Black residents of the United States, alone or in combination (Census Bureau population estimates) | 52.8 million |
| Black residents of California | 2.8 million |
| Black residents of Washington | 490,000 |
| Black residents of Arizona | 460,000 |
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Census; American Community Survey; Population Estimates Program. Method: Figures are drawn from the published federal sources named on this page, for the geography named; tile shading bands the published Black population share into the five legend classes. Counts are rounded as published by the source agency, and national benchmark rows are labeled with the basis they are published on.