Seattle

King County is hurtling toward a major demographic milestone. According to data released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau, we are just a hair’s breadth from crossing the threshold.

As of July 1, 2025, non-Hispanic white residents made up exactly 50.1% of King County’s population, putting the county on the verge of having no single racial or ethnic majority group for the first time.

It’s a remarkable shift over a relatively short period. In 2020, the county was more than 55% white. That figure has dropped by more than 1 percentage point on average each year since. If current trends hold, King County will officially have no racial/ethnic majority in next year’s census data release.

Thirty-eight of Washington’s 39 counties had a single racial/ethnic majority in 2025. Nearly all were majority non-Hispanic white, but three — Adams, Franklin and Yakima — were majority Hispanic. And only one — Grant County in Central Washington, where Moses Lake is located — already had no racial/ethnic majority group. In this largely agricultural county, non-Hispanic white people made up around 48% of the population, and Hispanic people 46%. All other groups made up only around 6%.