No Surprises Here: California Population to Balloon by Mid-Century

File this under the "no kidding" category: according to a new report just released by the state Department of Finance, California's population is expected to surge by almost 75% over the next half-century with Riverside the likely recipient of a large fraction of the influx. Analysts predict it will surpass its neighbors to become the second most populous county in the state after Los Angeles.

The state's population will have almost doubled in size if the finance department's predictions hold true: rising from 34.1 million in 2000 to 59.5 million by 2050. California's growth rate would thus beat the national rate by a hefty margin — 75% versus 50%. Here are some of the quick stats: Southern California's population will reach 31.6 million (thanks to a growth rate of over 60%), L.A. County will just top 13 million and Riverside County will reach 4.7 million (a tripling in size).

While most of California's population boom will (unsurprisingly) be fueled by growth in the Latino population, experts believe that it will take longer than previously estimated for Latinos to constitute a majority of the state's residents (2042 instead of 2038). "The future of the state is Latino growth," said Dowell Myers, a professor of urban planning and demography at USC, who added that "68% of the growth this decade will be Latino, 75% next and 80% after that."