A new study shows that the Hispanic population has escalated over the past seven years in North Dakota counties.

In North Dakota, over the past seven years, the counties of Williams, Stark, and Ward have the top increases in their Hispanic population in the country. Burleigh County even made the top ten as the state's been experiencing explosive general population growth in Hispanics thanks to an oil production boom that kept the state's economic growth in better shape during the Great Recession.

The study shows that the growth of Hispanics across the United States accentuates how they're dispersing into areas of the country where they haven't normally lived, causing some rural counties far from major metropolitan areas dominated by Latinos to see huge percentage-point increases in their Hispanic populations.

Despite the fact that you wouldn't necessarily think of North Dakota as somewhere that the Hispanic population would boom, the list below shows the top ten counties in the United States where the Hispanic population has increased from 2007 through 2014.

  1. Williams County, ND  367%
  2. Stark County, ND       294%
  3. Ward County, ND       117%
  4. Russell County, AL      92%
  5. Bryan County, GA        91%
  6. Luzerne County, LA      91%
  7. St. Bernard Parish, LA 89%
  8. Beadle County, SD       85%
  9. Duchense County, UT  85%
  10. Burleigh County, ND     82%

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