That distinction belongs to one of the state's smallest minority groups: blacks.

According to the latest Census Bureau estimates, released today, Utah's black population jumped 6.5 percent between July 2005 and July 2006.

"It's our largest growing minority group now," state demographer Juliette Tennert said Wednesday.

Hurricane Katrina could be a partial reason, she added. Utah sheltered hundreds of evacuees, many of them black, from storm-devastated New Orleans in the late summer of 2005, and a number may have stayed until at least July 2006.

Percentage-wise, though, the biggest spurts for blacks during that time frame took place in the southern counties of Garfield, Iron, Sevier and Washington and in eastern Utah's Uintah.

Washington County's black population, Tennert noted, climbed 24.3 percent during that period - from 1,796 to 2,232. Meanwhile, Utah County saw a 12.4 percent boost - from 1,941 to 2,182.

The state's black populace was below 1 percent in 2000, so the recent surge still represents small numbers. But black leaders welcomed the news.

"It's good to see that many folks wanting to move here," said Jeanetta Williams, president of the NAACP's Salt Lake branch. "To have that increase in Utah County is a surprise. In the past the larger concentration has been more in the Davis-Weber area."

Williams worries about how long the newly arrived blacks will stay.

"Blacks are generally underemployed in Utah so they leave," she said. "To have upward mobility, Utah isn't necessarily the place to come."

When it comes to sheer numbers, Latinos still make up the state's largest minority. They accounted for 9 percent in 2000, and that number has been swelling ever since.

Tennert said the latest data show Weber County's Latino population leading the state at 15.35 percent. Salt Lake County's is 15.26 percent and Utah County's is 9 percent.

From 2005 to 2006, Weber County's Latino numbers expanded by 4 percent while Salt Lake County's shot up by 5.6 percent.

Other notable facts in today's census release: Utah continues to have the nation's lowest median age at 28.3. Texas is next at 33.1.

Almost a third of Utahns - 31 percent - are under age 18.

"Our echo-boomers [offspring of baby boomers] are having babies now," Tennert said. "In Utah, they're a very large group, whereas they're shrinking in the rest of the nation."

cmckitrick@sltrib.com