Maryland’s and Virginia’s Hispanic populations each rose more than 5 percent from July 2006 to July 2007, even though their overall population numbers inched up less than 1 percent, according to data being released by the Census Bureau today.

Hispanics made up 6 percent of the populations of both Virginia and Maryland by July 2007, according to census data. That’s up from less than 5 percent in 2002 as a result of a steady growth each year.

From 2003 to 2007, the growth in the number of Hispanic residents was 35 percent in Maryland and 33 percent in Virginia. The total population gains for the same time period were 3 percent in Maryland and 6 percent for Virginia.

Nationally, Hispanic residents constitute 15 percent of the total population, the highest tally ever.

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Tom Edwards, public information officer for the Census Bureau, said the data being released include both legal and illegal immigrants. Experts, though, have long said the proportion of legal immigrants in the Washington region far outweighs the proportion of illegal immigrants.

Although the census numbers are provided on a state level only, demographers have attributed increases in the number of Hispanic residents largely to a few counties, including Montgomery in Maryland and Fairfax in Virginia, which have become hotbeds for immigrants.

Marie Price, chairwoman of George Washington University’s geography department, told The Examiner jobs are the primary draw.

In a book she recently co-wrote documenting the nation’s explosion of immigrants, Price presented evidence that immigrants are increasingly choosing to settle in the region’s suburbs rather than in D.C. itself, which is why D.C.’s Hispanic population has stayed virtually stagnant.

Unlike some regions of the country, the immigrant population in Maryland and Virginia also comes from a number of different countries.

“The growth has just been spectacular,” she said. “We’re now as diverse as New York.”

dlevitz@dcexaminer.com