Factbox: New U.S. Congress at a glance

(Reuters) - When the U.S. Congress convenes Tuesday to begin its 114th two-year session, Republicans will take control of the Senate and intensify their hold on the House for the last two years of the Obama administration.

Among the dozens of lawmakers making their Capitol Hill debut are a handful of Republicans already making headlines, including Utah Congresswoman Mia Love, a former mayor who will be the first black female Republican in Congress.

Love and other freshman, including New York Republican Elise Stefanik, the youngest woman yet to join the House, will inject a modicum of diversity into the Republican Party, but overall its demographics will still be largely white, mostly male and almost entirely Christian.

Here is a snapshot of the 435 House members and 100 senators who will vote on legislation over the next two years, focusing on the Republican Party:

Ethnicity: The 114th Congress is roughly 85 percent white. There are three black Republican lawmakers, the largest number concurrently serving since Reconstruction: Love, fellow freshman Congressman William Hurd of Texas and South Carolina Senator Tim Scott.

Gender: There are 104 women - 20 in the Senate and a new record of 84 in the House, according to the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers. Within the Republican ranks, there are a record-setting six women in the Senate and 21 women in the House, down slightly from a high-water mark earlier in the decade.

Religion: More than 90 percent of Congress is Christian, with more than half of those identifying as Protestant. New York Congressman Lee Zeldin, a freshman, is the only non-Christian Republican, according to the Pew Research Center.

Republican Newcomers: Love became a Republican star at the party's 2012 national convention and she remained in the spotlight in recent weeks, defending House Majority Whip Steve Scalise after reports he spoke to a white supremacist group while a state lawmaker.

Iowa's Joni Ernst bolsters the ranks of Republican women in the Senate. Ernst's primary ad described her past castrating hogs on a farm and promised to “make them squeal” in Washington. She is poised to be a power broker, given her status as a Tea Party favorite and Iowa's influential role in presidential politics.

Colorado Senator Cory Gardner is set to serve on the influential energy and foreign relations committees, immediately throwing him into the midst of pitched congressional debates after eking out a narrow victory in a crucial swing state.

(Reporting by Amanda Becker, Susan Cornwell and Gabriel Debenedetti; Editing by Leslie Adler)