March 6 (Reuters) - The race to win the Republican Party's presidential nomination to challenge President Barack Obama moves on to "Super Tuesday" when 10 states, including Georgia, hold primaries or caucuses.
Here are a few facts about the Georgia Republican primary.
* The conservative southeastern state will send 76 delegates to the Republican National Convention, making it the biggest delegate prize of all of Tuesday's races.
* Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, a former U.S. congressman from Georgia who is lagging Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum in the race to become the Republican nominee, has vowed to win his home state. The former speaker of the House of Representatives, who has won only in South Carolina, has said a victory in Georgia would help propel him on to win several other southern states.
* In 2008 Republican presidential candidate Romney, making his first White House run, came in third in Georgia with 30 percent of the vote. But he did win support in most of metro Atlanta - the state's most populous area.
* One of the fastest-growing states, Georgia's population shot up 18.3 percent between 2000 and 2010, according to the U.S. Census, making it the ninth most populous state in the country.
* Caucasians made up nearly 60 percent of the state's population, African Americans comprised 30.5 percent and Hispanics 8.8 percent in 2010, according to the latest U.S. Census.
* Georgia was hit hard by the recent recession, and Atlanta was one of the epicenters of the housing market collapse. The unemployment rate was 9.4 percent in December 2011, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, compared to the 8.5 percent national average then. (Reporting By Lily Kuo; Editing by Deborah Charles and Eric Walsh)
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