WASHINGTON, Feb. 22 (Xinhuanet) -- The foreign-born population in the United States numbered 34.2 million in 2004, accounting for 12 percent of the country's total population, figures released by the Census Bureau on Tuesday showed.

    The number of foreign-born population was 2.3 percent higher than that in 2003.

    Of the foreign-born population, 53 percent were born in Latin America, 25 percent in Asia, 14 percent in Europe and the remaining 8 percent in other regions of the world, such as Africa and Oceania.

    Second-generation Americans, which are natives with one or both parents born in a foreign country, numbered 30.4 million in 2004, accounting for 11 percent of the total US population, according to the Census Bureau, which conducted the survey of 62,500 households in March 2004.

    About 6 million immigrants arrived in the United States since 2000, 59 percent of them from Latin America and 23 percent from Asia. These immigrants are more educated than those who came in the late 1990s, according to Census Bureau data. Enditem