White Americans account for less than 60 per cent of the US population for the first time on record while more than four in 10 now identify as multiracial or people of colour, according to findings from the 2020 US census that underscore the country’s rapidly shifting demographics.

The findings from the once-a-decade survey, which will be used to redraw congressional boundaries, “reveal that the US population is much more multiracial and more racially and ethnically diverse than what we measured in the past,” Nicholas Jones, director and senior adviser of race and ethnicity research and outreach at the US Census Bureau, said on Thursday.

The data also illustrate the extent to which terms such as “majority” and “minority” — long used by the Census Bureau and others as shorthand for “white” and “non-white” — no longer reflect broad US demographics.