Asian American demographics by city

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Docere

Is the comparison NYC vs. Greater London, or NYC Metro vs. Greater London and home counties? There's a much more significant diversity "dropoff" in London.

US data for non-Indian South Asians is quite poor, but I think London has about twice as many South Asians as the New York area.

Bangladeshis have become a significant immigrant group in NYC, but there are few Bangladeshi Americans overall and they're not among the Census Bureau's "big six" Asian subgroups.

I'm seeing the entire UK with about 2x the Indian population of the NYC metro. And I know that Pakistanis are more outside of SE England. The UK Bangla population isn't huge. But London and environs still have around 2 million+ South Asians?

[Docere]

Greater London

Indian 656,272 7.5%
Bangladeshi 322,054 3.7%
Pakistani 290,549 3.3%

That's 1,268,000, plus a number of Sri Lankans among the "other Asians" in Greater London.

Not sure how many there are in the home counties.

[Docere]

Asian population of the home counties (mostly South Asian):

Essex 56,253 2.7%
Hertfordshire 103,668 8.6%
Kent 69,934 4.4%
Surrey 92,911 7.7%

https://www.varbes.com/demographics/essex-demographics

https://www.varbes.com/demographics/...e-demographics

https://www.varbes.com/demographics/kent-demographics

https://www.varbes.com/demographics/surrey-demographics

[Quixote]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Is the South Asian population in Greater London really that much bigger than the South Asian population in the NYC metro? By % no doubt bigger, but I'd imagine the numbers are relatively close? There have to be over 1 million South Asians in the NYC metro by now.

The Trenton-Princeton-New Brunswick-Woodbridge corridor is gonna be plurality South Asian in a not-too-distant future. If you look at the elementary school enrollments in towns like Edison (90%+ Asian in lower grades, almost all Indian) it's happening shortly.

I think so. Greater London alone has 656,000 Indians. South East has at least 242,000 and East of England 137,000. The latter two don’t include mixed-race (e.g. half Indian, half English).

So there are about a million people of full or partial Indian descent in the London metro area.

But the biggest differences are clearly in the other South Asian groups.

[Docere]

2.1 million Asians in London and the home counties. And probably 90% are South Asian.

[Quixote]

London’s small Chinese and Korean populations are where it falls flat, since those represent two of the three East Asian groups.

[Docere]

*

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Quixote

I think so. Greater London alone has 656,000 Indians. South East has at least 242,000 and East of England 137,000. The latter two don’t include mixed-race (e.g. half Indian, half English).

So there are about a million people of full or partial Indian descent in the London metro area.

But the biggest differences are clearly in the other South Asian groups.

I agree there are more, but I don't see a big difference. I see roughly at least 1 million South Asians in the NYC metro. I don't see even 1.5 million in London and home counties. GLA is very diverse, home counties not so much.

Metro NYC has around 750k Indians, and the NYC Bangla population is exploding. The Guyanese are overwhelmingly South Asian, and NYC has far more Guyanese than anywhere outside South America. The UK is far more Pakistani, but they're very dispersed. Metro NYC definitely has more South Asians in the suburbs compared to home counties, but the gap appears to be Greater London compared to five boroughs.

[Docere]

1.9 million Asians in Greater London, I'm guessing 90% are South Asian. And maybe around 300,000 in the home counties.

[Docere]

I'm not sure how Guyanese are classified in the Census. And there's a lot of Indo-Guyanese in NYC.

[Docere]

Greater London

Indian 656,272
Bangladeshi 322,054
Pakistani 290,549
Chinese 147,250

Write-in responses:

Sri Lankan 78,975
Filipino 57,867
Afghan 54,294
Tamil 30,742
Vietnamese 18,069
Japanese 16,868
Iranian 13,732
Korean 11,833

https://www.ons.gov.uk/datasets/TS02...94f4d#get-data

[Capsicum]

Originally Posted by Docere

Illinois (1990)

Filipino 64,224
Indian 64,200
Chinese 49,936
Korean 41,506

Texas (1990)

Vietnamese 69,634
Chinese 63,232
Indian 55,795
Korean 31,775

Virginia (1990)

Filipino 35,067
Korean 30,164
Chinese 21,238
Vietnamese 20,693
Indian 20,494

I wonder what the first state ever was to have Indian (or a South Asian group) as its top Asian demographic and when... by the looks of it Illinois is closest by the 1990s (unless any was earlier) but most probably not until the millennium?

[Docere]

New Jersey, probably in 1980. There may have been Indian pluralities in other states as well which had very small Asian populations at the time.

[Docere]

1980 Asian population:

Chinese 812,178
Filipino 781,894
Japanese 716,331
Indian 387,223
Korean 357,393
Vietnamese 245,025

Chinese

California 325,882
New York 147,250
Hawaii 55,916
Illinois 28,847
Texas 26,714
Massachusetts 24,882
New Jersey 23,492
Washington 17,984
Maryland 15,037
Pennsylvania 13,769
Florida 12,930
Michigan 10,824
Ohio 10,584

Filipino

California 358,378
Hawaii 132,075
Illinois 44,317
New York 35,630
Washington 25,662
New Jersey 24,470
Virginia 19,111
Texas 15,952
Florida 15,252
Maryland 11,763
Michigan 11,132

Japanese

California 268,814
Hawaii 239,734
Washington 25,662
New York 24,754
Illinois 18,432
Texas 12,084
Colorado 10,841
New Jersey 10,263

Indian

New York 67,636
California 59,774
Illinois 37,438
New Jersey 30,684
Texas 23,395
Pennsylvania 17,230
Michigan 15,363
Maryland 13,788
Ohio 13,602
Florida 11,039

Korean

California 102,582
New York 33,260
Illinois 24,351
Maryland 14,783
Texas 13,772
Washington 13,441
New Jersey 13,173
Virginia 12,797
Pennsylvania 12,597
Hawaii 12,453

Vietnamese

California 85,238
Texas 27,791
Louisiana 10,853

[Crawford]

Wow, NJ really bulked up its Korean population in recent decades. I had heard that NJ Koreans are an outgrowth of a small 1970's-1980's Bronx enclave (there are tiny remnants still, in Bedford Park, and a handful of elderly and not much more than a church and market) that quickly moved to Jersey as they rose up the economic ladder. The most heavily Korean NJ suburbs are right over the GW Bridge from Upper Manhattan/Bronx so it sounds plausible.

Koreans arrived pretty poor and were greengrocers. Now mostly out of that business and highly professional. Palisades Park, NJ is the only majority Korean city in the U.S. and has a pretty impressive Korean presence.

Then there's the second NYC-area community, which began in Elmhurst and Flushing Queens, and moved eastward, into Bayside Queens and then into Long Island. Northern Boulevard from downtown Flushing to downtown Great Neck has a strong Korean presence. Great Neck South High School is majority Asian, mostly Korean (Great Neck North is mostly Persian Jewish).

[Docere]

So in 1980, Chinese, Filipinos and Japanese were all similar sized, and the number of Indians was pretty similar to Koreans. Now Indians have surpassed Filipinos and are more or less even with Chinese. Japanese rank sixth, reflecting the fact that they're an older, mostly native-born group and there's little Japanese immigration.

[Quixote]

Originally Posted by Docere

Population by Asian subgroup, 2021 ACS (5000+)

Los Angeles MSA
Chinese 574,834
Filipino 424,338
Vietnamese 313,035
Korean 305,584
Indian 160,234
Japanese 129,293
Taiwanese 45,347
Cambodian 39,876
Thai 27,820
Pakistani 18,413
Indonesian 12,353
Bangladeshi 7,028
Laotian 6,203
Sri Lankan 5,943
Burmese 5,855

Riverside MSA
Filipino 110,094
Chinese 67,485
Vietnamese 31,910
Indian 28,527
Korean 25,081
Japanese 9,593
Pakistani 7,205
Taiwanese 6,037
Cambodian 6,006

Missing Ventura County.

Greater LA probably now has over 200,000 Indians. Yes, it should have more. But the Bay Area should have more Koreans (for being such an Asian metro) and NYC Vietnamese (Houston, DFW, DC, Seattle, and San Diego have larger Vietnamese populations). LA also had the largest Sri Lankan population until fairly recently.

Totals:

Chinese 642,319
Filipino 534,432
Vietnamese 344,945
Korean 330,665
Indian 188,761
Japanese 138,886
Taiwanese 51,384
Cambodian 45,882
Thai 27,820
Pakistani 25,618
Indonesian 12,353
Bangladeshi 7,028
Laotian 6,203
Sri Lankan 5,943
Burmese 5,855

[Docere]

Even the most diverse cities in the world are "missing" some nationality or part of the world.

L.A. is #1 for pretty much every East and Southeast Asian group, except for Chinese (and the Chinese numbers in the NYC area, the Bay Area and Greater L.A. are all pretty close).

[Quixote]

Unlike the Chinese, Indians are more spread out across several metros, so LA will have a large Indian population regardless (it already does). 200,000 is a big number, but it really should be twice that.

[Quixote]

NY/NJ was once the clear-cut epicenter of the Indian-American population, but Indians have flocked to the Bay Area thanks to Silicon Valley.