The demographics of the United States will look radically different in the next several decades. But you don’t have to wait 45 years to see a picture of that America. Just go to Texas.
The racial and ethnic makeup of the Lone Star State today closely resembles what the entire country is expected to look like half-a-century from now. Roughly a third of population is Hispanic and less than half the population is white.
It’s possible, using projections the Census Bureau has released for every year through 2060, to match each state’s current demographics to the year it most resembles on a national level—past, present or future. For example, the Florida of today very closely resembles where the nation is expected to be in 2029. Meanwhile, Connecticut is frozen in the demographic amber of 2001, and neighboring Massachusetts looks like the America of 1993. North Dakota is like the America of 1930.
To produce a year for each state, TIME compared the current percentage of white, black, Hispanic and Asian residents to the same percentages on a national level for every year from 1900 through 2060.
Some matches are closer than others. States with small black populations, like Iowa, are typically matched to the year 1930, the year with the lowest percentage of black residents nationally. States with large Hispanic populations typically match to future projections.
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Write to Chris Wilson at chris.wilson@time.com