Asian American Population in the United States

Written By Charles H. Jung

What is the Asian Population in the U.S.?

In 2020, Americans who identified as Asian alone (19,886,049) or in combination with other races (4,114,949) made up 7.2% of the U.S. population, or 24,000,998 people according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The Asian population is the fastest-growing racial or ethnic group in the U.S. Between 2000 and 2019, the Asian American population grew 81%, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau population estimates. Pew estimates that by by 2060, the number of U.S. Asians is projected to reach 46 million.

U.S. Census Data: Asian Population ("Asian alone" measure, not including two or more races)

https://datacommons.org/place/country/USA?category=Demographics#Population-by-race

For census purposes, Asians includes a “person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent including, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippine Islands, Thailand, and Vietnam.” Chinese Americans (except Taiwanese) and Indian Americans are the two largest Asian Americans subgroup of, making up 24% of the Asian population, or 5.4 million people. The next two largest origin groups are Indian Americans, who account for 21% of the total (4.6 million people), and Filipinos, who account for 19% (or 4.2 million people). Those with roots in Vietnam (2.2 million), Korea (1.9 million) and Japan (1.5 million) each have a population of at least 1 million. The other 13 groups in this analysis account for 12% of all U.S. Asians, totaling 2.7 million people, with no one group surpassing 600,000. The remaining 3% of U.S. Asians provided other origins or indicated they are Asian but did not indicate a specific origin.

Geographic Dispersion:

Which States Have the Highest Asian Population?

By size, California is the state with the largest Asian American population by far. From 2010 to 2020, California’s Asian American population grew from 5,556,592 (14.9%) to 7,045,163 (17.8%). The top 10 states in order of population, according to the 2020 Census are:

  1.  California: 7,045,163 (17.8%)

  2.  New York: 2,173,719 (10.8%)

  3.  Texas: 1,849,226 (6.3%)

  4.  New Jersey: 1,046,732 (11.3%)

  5.  Washington: 939,846 (12.2%)

  6.  Illinois: 875,488 (6.8%)

  7.  Florida: 843,005 (3.9%)

  8.  Hawaii: 824,143 (56.6%)

  9.  Virginia: 757,282 (8.8%)

  10.  Pennsylvania: 603,726 (4.6%)

Which Counties Have the Highest Asian Populations?

Three California counties also have the top three Asian American populations: Los Angeles (1,697,762), Santa Clara (819,560), and Orange County (792,539). By percentage of population, three counties in Hawaii are the most densely populated: Honolulu (62.19%), Kauai (49.48%), Maui (44.38%).

Proportion of Asian Americans in each county of the fifty states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico as of the 2020 United States Census

Proportion of Asian Americans in each county of the fifty states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico as of the 2020 United States Census. Abbasi786786, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Which Cities Have the Highest Asian Populations?

The top metropolitan areas with the highest population of Asian Americans in 2010:

  1. Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, CA Metro Area: 1,884,669 (14.7%)

  2. New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA Metro Area: 1,878,261 (9.9%)

  3. San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA Metro Area: 1,005,823 (23.2%)

  4. San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA Metro Area: 571,967 (31.1%)

  5. Chicago-Joliet-Naperville, IL-IN-WI Metro Area: 532,801 (5.6%)

  6. Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV Metro Area: 517,458 (9.3%)

  7. Honolulu, HI Metro Area: 477,503 (43.9%)

  8. Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA Metro Area: 392,961 (11.4%)

  9. Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, TX Metro Area: 389,007 (6.5%)

  10. Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX Metro Area: 341,503 (5.4%)

  11. San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos, CA Metro Area: 336,091 (10.9%)

  12. Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD Metro Area: 295,766 (5.0%)

  13. Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA-NH Metro Area: 294,503 (6.5%)

  14. Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA Metro Area: 259,071 (6.1%)

  15. Sacramento--Arden-Arcade--Roseville, CA Metro Area: 255,995 (11.9%)

  16. Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta, GA Metro Area: 254,307 (4.8%)

Race and Ethnicity in the United States: 2010 Census and 2020 Census

Sources:

Charles H. Jung http://www.calwages.com