For the first time, children born to racial and ethnic minority parents represent the majority of all recent births in the United States, outpacing those born to white parents, the Census Bureau says.

The new figures are a milestone for the nation, though not for California, where racial and ethnic minority births have been a majority for many years.

In its new report, the Census Bureau says that minorities, including Latinos, Asians, African Americans, Native Americans and those of mixed race, accounted for 50.4% of all births in the 12-month period ending July 1 of last year. Non-Hispanic white births made up 49.6% of all births during the period.

In April 2010, when the last decennial census was taken, minority births stood at 49.5% of all births.

The new report also shows that California is among four states, along with the District of Columbia, where minorities formed a majority of the population in 2011. Hawaii was 77.1% minority, the District of Columbia 64.7%, California 60.3%, New Mexico 59.8% and Texas 55.2%. California first passed that threshold in 1999, according to the Census Bureau.

California had the largest Latino population of any state with 14.4 million on July 1, 2011, and Los Angeles had the largest Latino county population at 4.8 million. New Mexico had the highest Latino percentage at 46.7%, while Starr County, Texas, on the Mexican border, had the highest share of Latinos at 95.6%.

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-- Rebecca Trounson

Photo: Newborns wait in the nursery at Santa Monica UCLA Medical Center. Credit: Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times