Bergen County, New Jersey - Demographics - Communities

Communities

One of the largest immigrant groups in Bergen County is the Korean American community, which is concentrated along the Hudson River – especially in the area near the George Washington Bridge – and represents over half of the state's entire Korean population. As of the 2010 Census, persons of Korean ancestry made up 6.3% of Bergen County's population, which is the highest of any county in the United States; while the concentration of Koreans in Palisades Park, within Bergen County, is the highest of any municipality in the United States, at 52% of the population. Palisades Park was home to the highest total number (6,065) of individuals of Korean ancestry among all municipalities in the state, while neighboring Fort Lee has the second largest cluster (5,978) and third highest proportion (17.18%, trailing Leonia's 17.24%). Eight of the nation's top ten municipalities by percentage of Korean population are located in Bergen County, including Palisades Park, Leonia, Fort Lee, Ridgefield, Closter, Norwood, Edgewater, and Englewood Cliffs. Overall, 16 of the top 20 communities on that list are located in Bergen; virtually all are in the eastern third of the county near the Hudson River. However, Ridgewood has emerged as a new Korean American nexus in western Bergen County.

In addition, the commercial districts of several communities — including Palisades Park, Fort Lee, Cliffside Park, Ridgefield, Leonia, and to a lesser extent Englewood Cliffs, Edgewater, and Fairview — collectively function as a sprawling suburban Koreatown for northern New Jersey, drawing shoppers from throughout the region. There is also an entrenched Korean population in the Northern Valley, especially in Tenafly, Cresskill, Demarest, Closter, Norwood, and Old Tappan, as well as in several inland boroughs, including Paramus, Rutherford, and Little Ferry. Broad Avenue in the Palisades Park Koreatown has been described as the center of Korean culture in Bergen County, while the Fort Lee Koreatown is also emerging as such; nearby Grand Avenue houses the headquarters of The Korean-American Association of New Jersey. Bergen County's growing Korean community was cited by county executive Kathleen Donovan in the context of Hackensack attorney Jae Y. Kim's appointment to Central Municipal Court judgeship in January 2011. According to The Record of Bergen County, the United States Census Bureau has determined that the county’s Korean American population – 2010 census figures put it at 56,773 – has grown enough to warrant language assistance during elections, and Bergen County's Koreans have established significant political clout.

Indian Americans (not to be confused with American Indians) represent the second largest Asian ethnic group in Bergen County, with slightly larger numbers than the Filipino and Chinese communities. Although the Indian American population in the area is widely dispersed, its biggest clusters are located in Ridgewood, Fair Lawn, Paramus, Hackensack, Bergenfield, Lodi, and Elmwood Park. Within the county's Indian population is a prominent Malayali community.

Bergenfield and, to a lesser extent New Milford, Dumont, and Teaneck, have become a hub for Filipino Americans, with Bergenfield becoming the first municipality on the East Coast of the United States to elect a mayor of Filipino descent in November 1999. Taken as a whole, these four adjacent municipalities contain over 40% of Bergen's entire Filipino population, although there are small numbers of Filipinos in many of the county's communities.

The Chinese American population is also spread out, with fairly sizable populations in Fort Lee, Paramus, and Englewood Cliffs. Fort Lee and Paramus have the highest total number of Chinese among Bergen municipalities while Englewood Cliffs has the highest percentage (8.42%).

The small Japanese community, which mainly consists of foreign businessmen and their families, has long had a presence in Fort Lee, with over a quarter of the county's total Japanese population living in that borough alone. The remainder of Bergen's Japanese residents are concentrated in the towns surrounding Fort Lee as well as in a few northern communities such as Ridgewood.

Meanwhile, Italian Americans have long had a significant presence in Bergen County; in fact, Italian is the most commonly identified first ancestry among Bergen residents (21.0%). Overall, 194,614 Bergen residents were recorded as being of Italian heritage in the 2000 census. To this day, many residents of the Meadowlands communities in the south are of Italian descent, most notably in South Hackensack (36.3%), Lyndhurst (33.8%), Carlstadt (31.2%), Wood-Ridge (30.9%) and Hasbrouck Heights (30.8%). Saddle Brook (29.8%), Lodi (29.4%), Moonachie (28.5%), Garfield, Hackensack, and the southeastern Bergen towns were Italian American strongholds for decades, but their numbers have diminished in recent years as immigrants have taken their place. At the same time, the Italian American population has grown in many of the affluent communities in the northern half of the county, including Franklin Lakes, Ramsey, Montvale, and Woodcliff Lake.

Irish Americans and German Americans are the next largest ethnic groups in Bergen County, numbering 133,351 in 2000 (12.8% of the county's total population) and 98,929 (11.2%), respectively. As is the case with Italian Americans, these two groups established sizable enclaves long ago and are now firmly entrenched in all areas of the county.

Polish Americans are well represented throughout Bergen County, with 65,232 residents of Polish descent as of the 2000 Census. The community's cultural and commercial heart has long been centered in Wallington, where 45.5% of the population is of Polish descent; this is the largest concentration among New Jersey municipalities and the seventh-highest in the United States. In recent years, the adjacent city of Garfield has also become a magnet for Polish immigrants, with 22.9% of the population identifying themeselves as being of Polish ancestry, the third highest concentration in the state. And while Polish Americans are the fourth-largest ethnic group in Bergen County, Poland is also the second most common place of birth (after South Korea) for foreign-born county residents.

Many towns in the county have a significant number of Jewish Americans, including Fair Lawn, Teaneck, Tenafly, Englewood, Englewood Cliffs, Fort Lee, Woodcliff Lake, Paramus, and Franklin Lakes. Teaneck, Fair Lawn, and Englewood in particular have become havens for the Conservative and Orthodox Jewish communities, while Fair Lawn, Tenafly, Alpine, and Fort Lee are well known as hubs for Russian Americans, including a substantial proportion of Russian Jews. Closter, and Tenafly also have the largest Israeli communities in Bergen County and two of the three largest in the state. Altogether, 83,700 Bergen residents identified themselves as being of Jewish heritage in 2000.

Greek Americans have had a fairly sizable presence in Bergen for several decades, and according to 2000 census data the Greek community numbered 13,247 county-wide. The largest concentrations by percentage are in Englewood Cliffs (7.2%), Alpine (5.2%), Fort Lee (3.7%), and Palisades Park (3.5%). Similarly, the Armenian American population in Bergen (8,305 according to the 2000 Census) is dispersed throughout the county, but its most significant concentration is in the southeastern towns near the George Washington Bridge. Cliffside Park (3.6%), Englewood Cliffs (3.4%), Oradell (3.1%), Ridgefield (2.4%), Fairview (2.4%), Demarest (2.3%), and Emerson (2.2%) have the highest percentage of Armenians among all municipalities in the state, and in fact are all in the top 20 nationwide. Furthermore, the top 25 New Jersey communities on that list are all Bergen County communities.

Bergen also has a moderately sized Muslim population, which numbered 6,473 as of the 2000 census. Its most notable Muslim enclaves are centered in Teaneck and Hackensack, two of the most diverse communities in the entire county. Bergen's Muslim population primarily consists of Arab Americans, South Asians, and African Americans, although it should be noted that many members of these groups practice other faiths. While Arab Americans have not established a significant presence in any particular municipality, in total there are 11,755 county residents who indicated Arab ancestry in the 2000 census. The overwhelming majority of Bergen's Arab American population (64.3%) is constituted by persons of Lebanese (2,576), Syrian (2,568), and Egyptian (2,417) descent.

The county's African American community is almost entirely concentrated in three municipalities: Englewood (10,215 residents, accounting for 38.98% of the city's total population), Teaneck (11,298; 28.78%), and Hackensack (10,518; 24.65%). Collectively, these three areas account for nearly 70% of the county's total African American population of 46,568, and in fact blacks have had a presence in these towns since the earliest days of the county. In sharp contrast, African-Americans comprise less than 2% of the total in most of Bergen's other municipalities. In Englewood, the African American population is concentrated in the Third and Fourth wards of the western half of the city, while the northeastern section of Teaneck has been an African American enclave for several decades. Hackensack's long-established African American community is primarily located in the central part of the city, especially in the area near Central Avenue and First Street.

The diverse Latino population in Bergen is growing in many areas of the county, but is especially concentrated in a handful of municipalities, including Fairview (37.1%), Hackensack (25.9%), Ridgefield Park (22.2%), Englewood (21.8%), Bogota (21.3%), Garfield (20.1%), Cliffside Park (18.2%), Lodi (18.0%), and Bergenfield (17.0%). Traditionally, many of the Latino residents were of Colombian and Cuban ancestry, although that has been changing in recent years. Currently, Englewood's Colombian community is the largest in Bergen County and among the top ten in the United States (7.17%); Hackensack, Fairview, Bergenfield, and Lodi also have notable populations. The Cuban population is largest in Fairview, Ridgefield Park, Ridgefield, and Bogota, although the Cuban community is much bigger in Hudson County to the south. Since 1990 an increasing number of immigrants from other countries have entered the region, including people from Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Peru, and Ecuador. The diverse backgrounds of the local Latino community are best exemplified in Fairview, where 10% of the overall population hails from Central America, 7% from South America and 9% from other Latin American countries, mainly the Caribbean.