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Almost 4.5 million people were estimated to have resided in South Texas in 2010, almost 18 % of the entire Texas population. From 2000 to 2010, South Texas grew at the same rate as the rest of Texas. However, the population growth rates among specific races/ethnicities differed slightly between South Texas and the rest of Texas (Table 2.1). Metropolitan counties in South Texas experienced more population growth between 2000 and 2010 (an average of 23.6 %) than did nonmetropolitan counties (10.7 %). The five fastest-growing South Texas counties from 2000 to 2010 were Comal, Kendall, Guadalupe, Wilson, and Hidalgo counties [1].

Table 2.1 Percent estimated population growth between 2000 and 2010 in South Texas and the rest of Texas, by race/ethnicity
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In 2010, 68.9 % of the South Texas population was estimated to be Hispanic, 25.2 % was non-Hispanic white, and 3.9 % was African-American. In the rest of Texas, Hispanics comprised only 32.4 % of the population, with non-Hispanic whites clearly the majority, making up 49.3 % of the population. Also, a much larger percentage of the rest of Texas population (13.2 %) was African-American (Table 2.2) [1].

Table 2.2 Race/ethnic breakdown of the projected South Texas and rest of Texas populations, 2010
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The age distribution of the South Texas population in 2010 is shown in Fig. 2.1. The South Texas population as a whole is slightly younger than the rest of Texas. Almost 40 % of individuals in South Texas are younger than age 25 (Fig. 2.1).

Fig. 2.1
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Population age trends in South Texas, 2010. Source: Texas Health Data (http://soupfin.tdh.state.tx.us/people.htm); 2010 projection data were used

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Overall, the adult South Texas population is slightly less educated than the total Texas population. In South Texas in 2006–2010, 73.9 % of the population age 25 or older were high school graduates (compared to 80 % of Texas overall) and 20.5 % had a bachelors’ degree or higher (compared to 25.8 % in Texas overall) [2]. South Texas residents’ per capita personal income in 2010 was lower than for all of Texas, and the poverty rate in South Texas was higher (Table 2.3) [3, 4]. In 2010, 8.9 % of the South Texas population was unemployed, and 23.6 % lived below the poverty level. During this same time period, Texas’ unemployment rate was 8.2 % and poverty rate was 17.9 % [4, 5]. The top 10 counties with the highest poverty rates in Texas in 2010 were all South Texas counties, ranging from 32.3 % (Zapata) to 39.9 % (Maverick) [4].

Table 2.3 Socioeconomic statistics for South Texas and all of Texas
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Approximately 98 % of South Texans are on public water systems, and 75 % of the population served by these systems receives fluoridated water [6].