This paper discusses some basic shifts in the color composition of cities and total metropolitan areas in the United States. Special attention is given to regional variations throughout this country. Each of the fifty largest cities in the United States evidenced large increases over the last decade in the proportion nonwhite. When considering the total SMSA, however, important regional differences are noted. Outside the South, an overwhelming majority of the metropolitan areas experienced sizeable relative gains in the number of nonwhites; in the South, over six out of every ten SMSA's hadlowerproportions nonwhite in 1960 than in 1950.