IV.

The People of Connecticut

A.

Population Patterns

According to the 2000 national census, Connecticut ranked 29th among the states, with a total population of 3,405,565. The 2000 total was 3.6 percent larger than the 1990 total of 3,504,809. The average density in 2006 was 279 persons per sq km (723 per sq mi), making Connecticut the fourth most densely populated state.

Connecticut has been a predominantly urban state ever since the end of the 19th century. At all of the censuses beginning in 1950 more than three-quarters of the population has been classified as urban, and in 2000 some 88 percent of the people were so counted.

Almost all of the first European settlers in Connecticut, those who came during the 17th and 18th centuries, were of English origin. Irish, who supplied much of the growing demand for labor in the state’s early stages of industrialization, were the first large foreign-born group to arrive after the American Revolution. Italians began to settle in Connecticut and came in great numbers between 1900 and 1916. Between 1880 and 1919 many new immigrants came to Connecticut from Germany and Russia. Other major sources of immigrants were Québec and other parts of Canada, Poland, Lithuania, and Czechoslovakia. In 1910 about 30 percent of Connecticut’s total population was foreign-born. By 1970, however, the foreign-born proportion had fallen to only 9 percent. In the early 1990s the countries from which most immigrants were arriving were Poland, China, countries of the former Soviet Union, and India.

Whites constitute the largest ethnic group, with 81.6 percent of the population at the time of the 2000 census. Blacks were 9.1 percent of the people, Asians 2.4 percent, Native Americans 0.3 percent, and those of mixed heritage or not reporting race 6.5 percent. Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders numbered 1,366. Hispanics, who may be of any race, were 9 percent of the people. The blacks and Puerto Ricans in the state are almost all urban. Hartford, New Haven, and Bridgeport have the largest black populations. In 2000 Hartford was 38 percent black, New Haven was 37 percent black, and Bridgeport was 31 percent black.

B.

Principal Cities

The largest cities in Connecticut are Bridgeport, Hartford, New Haven, Stamford, and Waterbury. Bridgeport had a population in 2005 of 139,008 in the city and 903,291 in the metropolitan area in 2004. Hartford, the state capital, had a population of 124,397 in the city and 1,188,241 in the metropolitan area. New Haven had a population of 124,791 in the city and 846,766 in the metropolitan area. Stamford had 120,045 people, while Waterbury had 107,902 inhabitants in 2005. Other major cities are Norwalk, New Britain, and Danbury.

C.

Religion

The Roman Catholic Church accounts for about one-half of all the church members in the state. Of the Protestant denominations the Baptists are most numerous, followed by the Episcopalians, and Methodists. Many Orthodox Christians live in the state. There are large Jewish communities in most of the state’s major cities.

Congregationalism was established by law as the official religion of the Connecticut and New Haven colonies when the colonies were founded in the 17th century. It remained the official religion until the 1818 constitution was adopted. The congregation of each church was its own governing body, and there was nearly complete independence of all outside ecclesiastical control. After 1708 the churches lost their form of self-government and were placed under the administration of the various counties.