Greenville County's Hispanic population grew nearly 50 percent between 2000 and 2004, U.S. Census figures released today show.

The percentage of total residents of Hispanic origin remains low, at around 5 percent, but the four-year increase from 14,527 to 21,442 puts Greenville County eighth in the state in Hispanic population growth. At the top are Lee, Lancaster, Jasper, York, Lexington, Saluda and Newberry counties.

Taken as a whole, South Carolina's population was only 3 percent Hispanic in 2004, putting the state in the lower half nationally in Hispanic representation. Hispanics make up more than 5 percent of the population in 28 states, up from 16 states in 1990, USA TODAY reported.

The July 1, 2004, county estimates released today, grouped by race and ethnicity, also reveal strikingly different patterns between the nation's largest minority groups: Hispanics are moving to areas that have few Hispanics, while blacks are moving to suburban counties in the South that already have large black populations, USA TODAY reported.

In the 1990s, most Hispanic immigrants came to the United States through five "gateways" -- California, Texas, Illinois, New York and Florida. "Now, you're just as likely to go to Iowa, South Carolina or Tennessee," William Frey, demographer at the Brookings Institution in Washington, told USA TODAY.

"These are two major waves in America," Frey said. "One is the black return to the South. The other is Hispanics going to places where everybody else is moving, following the jobs."

South Carolina's Hispanic population grew about 36 percent between 2000 and 2004, from 96,109 to 130,432, Census figures show.

The report shows Texas is the fourth state to have a non-white majority, a trend driven by a surging number of Hispanics moving to the state, according to The Associated Press. Texas, where about 50.2 percent of residents are minorities, joins California, New Mexico and Hawaii as states with minority-majority populations.

Five other states -- Maryland, Mississippi, Georgia, New York and Arizona -- aren't far behind with about 40 percent minorities, the Census Bureau said.

South Carolina's minority population represented about 34 percent in 2004, according to census data.

The nation should be more than half minorities by 2050, said Steve Murdock, a demographer at the University of Texas at San Antonio.

"If you look in the 1990s, in every one of the 50 states, non-Anglo Hispanic populations grew faster than Anglo populations," Murdock said. "It's a very pervasive pattern."

The spreading out of Hispanics presents a challenge for the communities they settle in and Hispanics themselves. Schools and local governments often are not equipped to deal with Spanish speakers, USA TODAY reported.