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Maryland
The state entry: 1.8 million Black residents, 29.5% of the state, in the published 2020 count.
Maryland holds about 2 million Black residents — Black alone or in combination — nearly one in three of its people, with Black alone at about 1.82 million, or 29.5 percent. That is the highest Black population share of any state outside the Deep South, and Maryland's Black population is among the most affluent in the nation: its signature jurisdiction, Prince George's County, is the wealthiest majority-Black county in America, its capital city region is Baltimore, and its suburbs feed the federal economy. This article profiles the population in the census data.
Civic Snapshot
| Measure | Figure |
|---|---|
| Total population, 2020 | 6,177,224 |
| Black residents (alone), 2020 | 1,820,472 |
| Black share of the state, 2020 | 29.5% |
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Census Redistricting File (Public Law 94-171), Table P1 (race). Trend: U.S. Census Bureau, 2010 Census Redistricting File (Public Law 94-171), Table P1.
Population Trend
Between the 2010 and 2020 censuses, the Black population of Maryland grew from 1,700,298 to 1,820,472 (+7.1%), and its share of the whole moved from 29.4% to 29.5%.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Census Redistricting File (Public Law 94-171), Table P1 (race). Trend: U.S. Census Bureau, 2010 Census Redistricting File (Public Law 94-171), Table P1.
The Record
Prince George's County, adjoining Washington on its east, holds roughly 580,000 Black residents — about 64 percent of its 967,000 people — the largest majority-Black county population in the nation. Its data break the reference's usual associations: median Black household income in the county has run at or above the national median for all households, homeownership is high, and its subdivisions — Bowie, Upper Marlboro, Fort Washington, Mitchellville, Woodmore — contain some of the most affluent Black neighborhoods in the United States, built across two generations by the federal workforce the Washington profile documents. The county is the suburban Black America's flagship jurisdiction, and its statistics anchor the optimistic end of nearly every distribution in this reference.
Institutions
Black Maryland's institutions — congregations, schools, businesses, civic organizations — are recorded in this gazetteer where they stand: in the county and place entries beneath this page. The state page is the frame around them, holding 1.8 million Black residents across 24 counties and county equivalents and 536 places in the published counts.