The 10 Virginia Cities With The Largest Black Population For 2022

The 10 Blackest Cities In Virginia For 2022

1. Petersburg

2. Emporia

3. South Boston

4. Franklin

5. Portsmouth

6. Hampton

7. Danville

8. Richmond

9. Martinsville

10. Hopewell

Methodology: How We Determined The Cities In Virginia With The Largest Black Population For 2022

We still believe in the accuracy of data -- especially from the census. So that's where we went to get the breakdown of race across Virginia.

That lead us to the Census's most recently available data, the 2016-2020 American Community Survey data from the US Census.

Specifically, we looked at table B03002: Hispanic OR LATINO ORIGIN BY RACE. Here are the category names as defined by the Census:

• Hispanic or Latino
• White alone*
• Black or African American alone*
• American Indian and Alaska Native alone*
• Asian alone*
• Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone*
• Some other race alone*
• Two or more races*

Our particular column of interest here was the number of people who identified as Black or African American.

We limited our analysis to non-CDPs with a population greater than 5,000 people. That left us with 59 cities.

We then calculated the percent of residents that are Black or African American. The percentages ranked from 76.3% to 1.5%.

Finally, we ranked each city based on the percent of Black population with a higher score being more Black than a lower score. Petersburg took the distinction of being the most Black, while Poquoson was the least African American city. You can download the data here.

Read on for more information on how the cities in Virginia ranked by population of African American residents or, for a more general take on diversity in America, head over to our ranking of the most diverse cities in America.