The nation’s foreign-born population numbered 34.2 million in 2004, accounting for 12 percent of the total U.S. population, according to U.S. Census Bureau data released today. The number of foreign-born is 2.3 percent higher than it was in 2003.

   Within the foreign-born population, 53 percent were born in Latin America, 25 percent in Asia, 14 percent in Europe and the remaining 8 percent in other regions of the world, such as Africa and Oceania (Australia, New Zealand and all of the island nations in the Pacific).

   Second-generation Americans, natives with one or both parents born in a foreign country, numbered 30.4 million, or 11 percent of the total U.S. population.

   The Foreign-Born Population in the United States: 2004 tables show demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of the nation’s foreign-born population by year of entry and world region of birth. Data are available for the nation’s population by citizenship status and, for the first time, by generation (first, second and third and higher).

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Data in the report come from the Current Population Survey. Statistics from sample surveys are subject to sampling and nonsampling error.

For further information on the source of the data and accuracy of the estimates, including standard errors and confidence intervals, go to Appendix G of <http://www.census.gov/apsd/techdoc/cps/cpsmar04.pdf>.