These pie charts—which display the share of the Northern and Southern New England's population in each racial category—also includes information about the share of the population that report their ethnicity as Hispanic. The U.S. Census Bureau categorizes Hispanic as an ethnicity rather than a race, and people who indicate they are Hispanic can be of any race. Of note, as of July 2002, Hispanics surpassed blacks as the largest minority ethnic or racial group in America.

Northern New England is considerably less diverse than Southern New England. Nearly 96 percent of Northern New Englanders were white, with roughly 4 percent of the population indicating that they were black, Asian, or other. In addition, only 2 percent of the population indicated that they were Hispanic. By contrast, Southern New England was 86 percent white with over 8 percent of the population indicating that they were black, 4 percent inidicating that they were Asian, and 2 percent indicating other. Ten percent of Southern New Englanders identified themselves as Hispanic.

See also Racial and Ethnic Composition of New England and the United States.