Across much of New Jersey, the cultural tapestry woven into the state’s 565 municipalities is intricate and distinct — but not everywhere.

While a growing immigrant population fuels racial diversity across the state, there remain pockets where this is decidedly untrue.

Point Pleasant Borough, Upper Township, Lacey Township are at the top of that list, with diversity indices considerably lower than the state number.

Most measures of race in an area look at the percent of minorities or the percent of one particular racial group. The diversity index asks a different question: How well-balanced are all the racial groups in this town?

Specifically, the diversity index shows the chances of picking two random people out of a town’s population and having them be from two different races. We calculated the diversity index for each town in New Jersey and previously wrote about the ones with the highest indices.

A note about the data: The numbers in this story are from the 2013-2017 American Community Survey conducted by the Census Bureau. Towns with population of 10,000 or less were excluded from the analysis. We used the diversity index formula created in 1991 by Phil Meyer of the University of North Carolina and Shawn McIntosh of USA TODAY.

Most of these towns are majority white

Of the 172 towns where the diversity index is lower than the state’s, most were majority white. The percentage of white population in these towns ranged from 68 to 98 percent.

The least diverse towns in N.J.:

25. Wyckoff, Bergen County

Diversity index: 0.141

24. Pennsville, Salem County

Diversity index: 0.140

23. West Milford, Passaic County

Diversity index: 0.131

22. Middletown, Monmouth County

Diversity index: 0.130

21. (TIE) Vernon, Sussex County

Diversity index: 0.128

21. (TIE) Readington, Hunterdon County

Diversity index: 0.128

19. Stafford, Ocean County

Diversity index: 0.126

18. Southampton, Burlington County

Diversity index: 0.125

17. (TIE) Washington, Morris County

Diversity index: 0.122

17. (TIE) Mantua, Gloucester County

Diversity index: 0.122

15. Haddon, Camden County

Diversity index: 0.121

14. Harrison, Gloucester County

Diversity index: 0.118

13. Little Egg Harbor, Ocean County

Diversity index: 0.111

12. (TIE) Clark, Union County

Diversity index: 0.110

12. (TIE) Lower, Cape May County

Diversity index: 0.110

12. (TIE) Haddonfield, Camden County

Diversity index: 0.110

9. Colts Neck, Monmouth County

Diversity index: 0.108

8. Pequannock, Morris County

Diversity index: 0.102

7. Wall, Monmouth County

Diversity index: 0.101

6. Beachwood, Ocean County

Diversity index: 0.098

5. Wantage, Sussex County

Diversity index: 0.097

4. Berkeley, Ocean County

Diversity index: 0.089

3. Lacey, Ocean County

Diversity index: 0.060

2. Upper, Cape May County

Diversity index: 0.047

1. Point Pleasant, Ocean County

Diversity index: 0.032

Disha Raychaudhuri may be reached at disha@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @Disha_RC.