List of U.S. cities with large Chinese American populations
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Cities with large Chinese American populations with a critical mass of at least 1% of the total urban population and at least 10% of the total suburban population. Information based on 2000 Census.
Urban and suburban cities with a pan-Asian American majority population are denoted in bold lettering.
Multi-generation Chinese Americans include those descended from earlier immigrants - from the 1850s to 1950s -and fully become Americanized and they often have very little social connections and interactions to the new Chinese immigrants and their U.S.-born descendants. In the post-1965 era, first- and second-generation immigrants include those from Mainland China (Mandarin-speaking), Taiwan (Mandarin and Taiwanese-speaking), and Hong Kong (Cantonese-speaking) Also included in the Chinese American population are ethnic Chinese Vietnamese (who speak Cantonese or Chaozhou Chinese) who might consider themselves more Chinese than Vietnamese, thus skewing Census reporting.
Regions with significantly large Chinese American populations include the San Gabriel Valley and Silicon Valley in California and the Tri-State Region (New York and New Jersey) of the East Coast. The San Gabriel Valley region in particularly has the largest collection of U.S. suburbs with foreign-born Chinese-speaking populations. They generally range from working-class Chinese Vietnamese refugees and immigrants residing in gritty Rosemead and El Monte, California, to wealthy Taiwanese immigrants living in the upscale communities of San Marino, California and Diamond Bar, California.
Areas with growing Chinese American populations include southern Orange County, California, Edison, New Jersey, Plano and Richardson, Texas.
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Large cities
The following list of cities with a population of more than 250,000 have a Chinese American population in excess of 1 pecent of the total.
- San Francisco, California - 19.6% (152,620)
- Honolulu, Hawaii - 10.7% (39,600)
- Oakland, California - 8.0% (31,834)
- San Jose, California - 5.7% (51,109)
- Sacramento, California - 4.8% (19,425)
- New York City, New York - 4.5% (361,531)
- Queens - 6.3% (139,820)
- Manhattan - 5.7% (86,974)
- Brooklyn - 4.9% (120,662)
- Staten Island - 1.7% (7,490)
- Seattle, Washington - 3.4% (19,415)
- Boston, Massachusetts - 3.3% (19,638)
- Los Angeles, California - 1.7% (63,075)
- Portland, Oregon - 1.4% (7,181)
- Houston, Texas - 1.2% (24,001)
- Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - 1.2% (17,783)
Medium-size cities
The following list of cities with a population of between 100,000 and 250,000 have a Chinese American population in excess of 1 pecent of the total.
- Fremont, California - 14.4% (29,240)
- Daly City, California - 13.6%
- Sunnyvale, California - 9.56% (12,597)
- Berkeley, California - 7.4% (7,585)
Smaller cities and towns
The following list of municipalities with a population less than 100,000 a Chinese American population in excess of 1 pecent of the total.
Groups listed (e.g., Mainland Chinese, Taiwanese) after these cities form a large proportion of the Chinese-origin population.
California - Los Angeles - San Gabriel Valley
- Monterey Park, California - 41.2% (24,758) - Predominantly Mainland Chinese, generally pan-Chinese
- San Marino, California - 40.6% (5,260) - Taiwanese
- Arcadia, California - 34.0% (18,041) - Taiwanese
- San Gabriel, California - 33.6% (13,376) - Chinese Vietnamese, but generally pan-Chinese
- East San Gabriel, California (unincorporated, but also called San Gabriel) - 28.2% (4,096)
- Alhambra, California - 33.1% (28,437) - Mainland Chinese, Chinese Vietnamese
- Rosemead, California - 29.3% (15,678) - Mainland Chinese, Chinese Vietnamese
- Rowland Heights, California - 29.0% (14,057) - Taiwanese, growing number of Mainland Chinese
- Walnut, California - 28.6% (8,590) - Taiwanese
- Temple City, California - 27.9% (9,322) - Taiwanese
- Hacienda Heights, California - 22.4% (11,921) - Taiwanese
- Diamond Bar, California - 17.9% (10,091) - Taiwanese
- El Monte, California - 10.3% - Chinese Vietnamese
Source for above information: Wei Li "Building Ethnoburbia: The Emergence and Manifestation of the Chinese Ethnoburb in Los Angeles’ San Gabriel Valley." Journal of Asian American Studies 2(1): 1-28 (1999)
California - Los Angeles - Cerritos Valley
- Cerritos, California - 15% - Taiwanese
California - Orange County
- Irvine, California - 10.5% - Taiwanese
California - San Jose - Silicon Valley
- Cupertino, California - 23.8% (12,031) - Taiwanese
- Millbrae, California - 16.5% - Taiwanese
- Foster City, California - 16.3% - Taiwanese
- Milpitas, California - 12.9% - Taiwanese, Hong Kong Chinese, Mainland Chinese, Chinese Vietnamese, Chinese Filipinos, Chinese Indonesians, Macanese, and Chinese Burmese (Milpitas, California has one of the most regionally diverse Chinese populations in the United States.)