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It was during a drive through northern Collier County that Barbara Mainster realized how much the Hispanic community has grown in the area.

“I remember being surprised seeing (for the first time) a gas station with a taco restaurant inside,” said Mainster, executive director of Redlands Christian Migrant Association in Immokalee.

During the past few years, Collier residents have seen an increase in the county’s Hispanic population.

“We’re not talking huge,” Mainster said. “But we are talking steady.”

The group’s presence is evident from the Latin restaurants that continue to pop up throughout Collier, to local businesses changing their advertising tactics in an effort to tap into the area’s burgeoning Hispanic market.

But as the U.S. Census Bureau is scheduled to report today, Collier isn’t alone in its demographic shift.

Nearly one in every 10 of the nation’s 3,141 counties has a population that is more than 50 percent minority, including neighboring Miami-Dade County, which is among the nation’s 25 most-populous counties and had the highest minority population proportion, at 82 percent.

At 7 million, or 71 percent of its population, Los Angeles County in California had the largest minority population in the country in 2006.

According to Stefan Rayer, a demographer with the Bureau of Economic and Business Research at the University of Florida in Gainesville, the numbers being released today aren’t surprising.

“Most of the trends are really just a continuation of what’s been going on,” Rayer said. “In most counties, you’ll see that it’s a progression that continues to go up, or go down.”

And although Collier is barely hanging in on the country’s 100 fastest-growing counties list, the census’ July 2006 population estimates show that 314,649 people call the area home.

Of those, a total of 79,352 are of Hispanic origin.

Rayer said that in 2000, only about 19 percent of Collier’s then-254,154 population was of Hispanic descent.

Now it’s more than 24 percent.

“The Hispanic proportion is going up,” said Rayer, adding that Collier’s demographic shift could keep going. “Nobody knows what exactly will happen in the future. But it wouldn’t be surprising if that trend was continuing.”

Rayer’s conclusion and the census finding came as no surprise to Leonardo Garcia, executive director of the Southwest Florida Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, who said Hispanic businesses have found success in Collier County.

“The increase is definitely there, and it will continue,” Garcia said Wednesday. “I think Hispanic business leaders see that there is a lot of potential for their business to prosper in Collier.”

The census data being released today also show these general population shifts across the nation:

-- Harris County, Texas, gained 121,400 minority residents between 2005 and 2006, which led the nation. Harris (Houston is its largest city) now has a minority population of 2.5 million, comprising 63 percent of its total. Its minority population ranks third nationally, not far behind second-place Cook County, Ill. (Chicago).

-- Based on total population, Starr County, Texas, located on the Mexican border, had the highest proportion of all counties that was minority, at 98 percent.

-- Los Angeles County had the largest Hispanic population (4.7 million) in 2006, followed by Harris County, Texas, and Miami-Dade (1.5 million each).

-- Maricopa County, Ariz. (home of Phoenix), had the biggest numerical increase in the Hispanic population (71,000) since July 2005, followed by Harris County, Texas (63,000).

-- Starr County, Texas, had the highest Hispanic proportion of its total population in 2006, at 97 percent. In fact, each of the 11 counties with the highest Hispanic proportion of its total population was in Texas.