As the state continued to grow more diverse, just seven of Maryland’s 23 counties and Baltimore gained white residents in 2024, a Banner analysis of new estimates released by the Census Bureau on Thursday shows.

Statewide, Maryland lost 17,850 white, non-Hispanic residents last year. The loss was offset by growth in almost every other racial or ethnic group. Overall, Maryland’s population grew 46,158 to an estimated 6,263,220.

Nationwide, the white population was the only group that shrank, declining 0.1% from 2023, a news release from the Census Bureau said.

The Maryland counties that gained white residents didn’t add many. Queen Anne’s County, home to fewer than 54,000 residents last year, grew by 558 white residents — more than the other six counties’ gains combined.

Five of the seven counties sit along Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Most are sparsely populated. All but one voted for President Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election.

Of the seven, only Frederick and St. Mary’s counties had more than 55,000 residents last year. They each gained fewer than 20 white residents.

“I think part of what is going on in a lot of Maryland counties ... is that birth rates are not at replacement levels for whites nationally,” said Michael Bader, a demographer and associate professor at the Johns Hopkins University. “If you’re not getting new white residents moving in, then you’re going to see a decline in population just due to mortality.”

The small increases in white population in individual counties — especially in Queen Anne’s — are likely due to increased development and the movement of young, white people who commute to Baltimore or D.C. for work, Bader said.

“We’re reaching a point where the development keeps moving out, and so it’s not surprising that we would see the development in those counties lead to population growth,” Bader said.

Every county that saw white population gains last year was already over 60% white and had been since at least 2020.

“We tend to know that white folks tend to try to move to whiter areas,” Bader said.

The state saw an influx of more than 32,000 Hispanic residents, more than 12,000 Asian, non-Hispanic residents and more than 14,000 Black, non-Hispanic residents.

Every county in the state gained Hispanic and Asian residents last year. All but four gained Black residents, too.

The city of Baltimore, which gained population for the first time in a decade last year, was one of those four.

Baltimore’s Black population shrank for at least the fourth consecutive year. The city lost roughly 2,600 Black residents, the largest decline in Maryland by far — but more than 1,000 fewer than it lost the year prior. Bader said the decrease is likely driven by people moving from the city to the suburbs and an aging population.

The Baltimore losses were offset by increases in the Hispanic and Asian populations. Baltimore’s Hispanic population, which has steadily grown over the past four years, increased 4.7% last year. Its Asian population increased 4.3%.

Although the new data doesn’t make clear where in the city those populations are growing, Bader said some of the growth is likely due to an increase in the Latino population in Eastern Baltimore.

Data released this year showed international migration helped offset the loss of more than 3,200 Baltimore residents who moved to other places in the country last year, helping bolster the city’s population to create the 0.1% growth it saw in 2024.

It was no surprise that international immigration helped bolster the city’s population, said Crisaly De Los Santos, Baltimore and Central Maryland director for CASA, an immigrant advocacy group.

“As other folks are choosing to leave this area, the immigrant community has chosen to move in here,” De Los Santos said.

She urged city and state leaders to “choose immigrants the same way immigrants are choosing to build here.”

Bader said he’s concerned about the effect the Trump administration‘s recent actions on the federal workforce and its immigration policies might have on the city’s population.

“If people don’t have jobs here, they might start to look for jobs elsewhere in other parts of the country,” he said.

Stopping immigration? That would have “dramatic consequences for the state and for Baltimore,” he said.