In the 1847 census of San Diego County ordered by
Richard Barnes Mason, it found that 2,287 people lived in the county, to include Native Americans, Pacific Islanders, and African Americans. Since at least 2014, San Diego County is the fifth most populous county in the United States. In 2000, only about 3% of San Diego County residents left the county for work while 40,000 people commuted into the metropolitan area.
2020 census As of the
2020 census, the county had a population of 3,298,634 with a median age of 37.1 years; 20.9% were under the age of 18 and 15.2% were 65 years of age or older. For every 100 females there were 99.2 males, and among residents age 18 and over there were 97.7 males per 100 females. The racial makeup of the county was 49.5% White, 4.7%
Black or African American, 1.2%
American Indian and Alaska Native, 12.5%
Asian, 0.5%
Native Hawaiian and
Pacific Islander, 15.8% from some other race, and 15.8% from
two or more races.
Hispanic or Latino residents of any race comprised 33.9% of the population. 95.6% of residents lived in urban areas, while 4.4% lived in rural areas. There were 1,158,764 households in the county, of which 32.2% had children under the age of 18 living with them and 25.8% had a female householder with no spouse or partner present. About 23.2% of all households were made up of individuals and 9.0% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. Including those of mixed race, the total number of residents with Asian ancestry was 407,984.
2009 estimates As of 2009, the racial makeup of the county was 79.4%
White American, 5.6%
Black or
African American, 1%
Native American, 10.4%
Asian, 0.5%
Pacific Islander, 10.3% from
other races, and 3.6% from two or more races. 31.3% of the population were
Hispanic or
Latino of any race. 67.0% spoke only English at home; 21.9% spoke Spanish, 3.1%
Tagalog and 1.2%
Vietnamese.
2000 census In 2000, there were 994,677 households, out of which 33.9% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 50.7% were married couples living together, 11.6% had a female householder with no husband present, and 33.3% were non-families. 24.2% of all households were made up of individuals, and 7.9% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.73 and the average family size was 3.29. As of 2000, 25.7% of the population was under the age of 18, 11.30% was from 18 to 24, 32.0% from 25 to 44, 19.8% from 45 to 64, and 11.2% was 65 years of age or older. The median age was 33 years. For every 100 females, there were 101.2 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 99.7 males.
Other demographic data In 2012, it was estimated that there were 198,000
unauthorized immigrants; the origin of the plurality of them is
Mexico. In 2018, the median household income was $70,824; most people spend more than 30% of their income on housing costs. In August of that year, the median home price was $583,000; this is lower than the median home price in Los Angeles, and Orange counties.
Income According to the 2000 census, the median income for a household in the county was $47,067, and the median income for a family was $53,438. Males had a median income of $36,952 versus $30,356 for females. The per capita income for the county was $22,926. About 8.9% of families and 12.4% of the population were below the poverty line, including 16.5% of those under age 18 and 6.8% of those age 65 or over. Much of the county's high-income residents are concentrated in the northern part of the city of San Diego. The San Diego metropolitan area has two places with both a population of over 50,000 and a per capita income of over $40,000:
Carlsbad and
Encinitas. The county's largest continuous high-income urban area is a triangle from a first point on the northern edge of Carlsbad, a second point southeast of
Escondido, and a third point on the southern edge of
La Jolla. It contains all or most of the cities of Carlsbad, Encinitas,
Solana Beach,
Del Mar, and
Poway in addition to a substantial portion of northern San Diego.
Homelessness According to a point-in-time count taken for the San Diego Regional Task Force on Homelessness, there were 8,576 homeless individuals on January 6, 2018, a 6% decrease from 2017. 3,586 were sheltered, and 4,990 were not. 4,912 (75.3%) were in the city of San Diego. North County Inland had 1,153 (13.4%), North County Coastal with 822 homeless (9.6%), 602 (7%) were found in South County, and 1,087 (12.7%) in East County.
Religion According to a 2014
Pew Research Center survey, 68% of adults in the county were
Christian, of whom 32% were
Catholic. 27% were
religiously unaffiliated, and 5% adhered to a non-Christian faith. According to the
University of Southern California, in 2010, the largest faith in the county was Catholicism, followed by
non-denominational Christians, and
Mormons. In 2014, the county had 978 religious organizations, the seventh most out of all US counties.
Immigration data In 2014 according to
Pew Research Center, there are about 170,000 undocumented immigrants living in the region. San Diego has been a destination for
trafficked minors from Mexico and the Philippines. In 2018, the
United States Border Patrol caught an average of over a hundred individuals crossing the border
illegally each day. ==Economy==