Demographics of Asian Americans - Population

Population

During the 2010 United States Census, there were a total of 17,320,856 Asian Americans, including Multiracial Americans identifying as part Asian. This made Asian Americans 5.6 percent of the total American population. The largest ethnic groups represented in the census were Chinese (3.79 million), Filipino (3.41 million), Indian (3.18 million), Vietnamese (1.73 million), Korean (1.7 million), and Japanese (1.3 million). Other sizable ethnic groups include Pakistani (409,000), Cambodian (276,000), Hmong (260,000), Thai (237,000), Lao (232,000), Taiwanese (230,000), Bangladeshi (147,000), and Burmese (100,000). The total population of Asian Americans grew by 46 percent from 2000 to 2010 according to the Census Bureau, which constituted the largest increase of any major racial group during that period.

The 2000 census recorded 11.9 million people (4.2 percent of the total population) who reported themselves as having either full or partial Asian heritage. The largest ethnic subgroups were Chinese (2.7 million), Filipino (2.4 million), Indian (1.9 million), Vietnamese (1.2 million), Korean (1.2 million), and Japanese (1.1 million). Other sizable groups included Cambodians (206,000), Pakistanis (204,000), Lao (198,000), Hmong (186,000), and Thais (150,000). About one-half of the Asian American population lived in the West, with California having the most total Asian Americans of any state, at 4.2 million. As a proportion of the total population, Hawaii is the only state with an Asian American majority population, at 58 percent; Honolulu County had the highest percentage of Asian Americans of any county in the nation, with 62 percent. In 2000, 69 percent of all Asian Americans were foreign born, although Japanese Americans, 60 percent of whom were born in the United States, bucked this trend.

The Twenty-first United States Census, conducted in 1990, recorded 6.9 million people who were called "American Asians". The largest ethnic groups were Chinese (23.8 percent), Filipino (20.4 percent), Japanese (12.3 percent), Indian (11.8 percent), Korea (11.6 percent), Vietnamese (8.9 percent), and Laotian (2.2 percent). Smaller populations, of less then two percent, were documented of the following ethnicities: Cambodian, Thai, Hmong, Pakistani, Indonesian, Malay, Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan, and Burmese. Two thirds of "American Asians" lived in the five states of California, New York, Hawaii, Texas, and Illinois; additionally their highest population concentrations were in California, New York, and Hawaii. In 1990, 66 percent of "American Asians" were foreign born, with Vietnamese, Loatians, and Cambodians having this highest foreign born populations.