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In March 2003, the civilian noninstitutionalized population in the United States included 33.5 million foreign born, representing 11.7 percent of the U.S. population. Among the foreign born, 53.3 percent were born in Latin America, 25.0 percent were born in Asia, 13.7 percent were born in Europe, and the remaining 8.0 percent were born in other regions of the world. The foreign-born population from Central America (including Mexico) accounted for more than two-thirds of the foreign born from Latin America and more than one-third of the total foreign born.
In 2003, 11.3 percent of the foreign-born population lived in the Midwest, 22.2 percent in the Northeast, 29.2 percent in the South, and 37.3 percent in the West. In contrast, among the native population, 24.1 lived in the Midwest, 18.5 in the Northeast, 36.5 in the South, and 21.0 percent in the West.
Among the foreign born in 2003, 13.6 percent entered the United States since 2000, 36.6 percent came in the 1990s, 24.0 percent came in the 1980s, 13.7 percent came in the 1970s, and the remaining 12.2 percent arrived before 1970. Among those who arrived before 1970, 80.9 percent had obtained citizenship by 2003. Of those who entered from 1970 to 1979, 69.6 percent had obtained citizenship by 2003, compared with 48.3 percent of those who entered from 1980 to 1989, and 14.7 percent of those who entered in 1990 or later.
In 2003, 80.1 percent of the foreign born were 18 to 64 years of age, whereas 60.0 percent of the natives were in this age group. More specifically, 45.1 percent of the foreign born, but 27.0 percent of the native population were aged 25 to 44. Among the foreign born, 24.7 percent were 45 to 64 years old, compared with 23.5 percent of natives.
Spanish speakers grew by about 60 percent and Spanish continued to be the non-English language most frequently spoken at home in the United States in 2000. The number and percentage of people in the United States who spoke a language other than English at home increased between 1990 and 2000. In 2000, 18 percent of the total population aged 5 and over, or 47.0 million people, reported they spoke a language other than English at home. These figures were up from 14 percent (31.8 million) in 1990 and 11 percent (23.1 million) in 1980.
The three largest ancestries in 1990 were German, Irish, and English. In 2000, these groups were still the largest European ancestries, but each had decreased in size by at least 8 million and by more than 20 percent. The number of people who reported African American ancestry increased by nearly 1.2 million, or 4.9 percent, between 1990 and 2000, making this group the third largest ancestry. The population of many ancestries, such as Mexican, Chinese, Filipino, and Asian Indian, increased during the decade, reflecting sizable immigration, especially from Latin America and Asia. Several small ancestry populations, including Brazilian, Pakistani, Albanian, Honduran, and Trinidadian and Tobagonian, at least doubled.
In 2003, 25.0 percent of the family households with a foreign-born householder included five or more people. In contrast, only 12.5 percent of the family households with a native householder were this large. Among foreign-born family households, the proportion with five or more people varied from 39.3 when the householder was from Central America to 9.8 percent when the householder was from Europe.
Census 2000 measured a U.S. population of 281.4 million, including 1.2 million who reported an Arab ancestry. This is the first report the U.S. Census Bureau has produced on the population of Arab ancestry - The Arab Population: 2000 (PDF - 469 KB).
For the purposes of this report, people with ancestries originating from Arabic-speaking countries or areas of the world are categorized as Arab. For example, a person is included in the Arab ancestry category if he or she reported being Arab, Egyptian, Iraqi, Jordanian, Lebanese, Middle Eastern, Moroccan, North African, Palestinian, Syrian, and so on. It is important to note, however, that some people from these countries may not consider themselves to be Arab, and conversely, some people who consider themselves Arab may not be included in this definition.
The Arab population, which numbered over 1 million in 2000, increased by nearly 40 percent during the 1990s. In 2000, 1.2 million people reported an Arab ancestry in the United States, up from 610,000 in 1980 (when data on ancestry were first collected in the decennial census) and 860,000 in 1990. The Arab population-increase over the last two decades: 41 percent in the 1980s and 38 percent in the 1990s.
Arabs represented 0.42 percent of the U.S. population in 2000, compared with 0.27 percent in 1980. People of Lebanese, Syrian, and Egyptian ancestry accounted for about three-fifths of the Arab population. In 2000, 27 percent of the Arab population lived in the Northeast, while 26 percent lived in the South, 24 percent in the Midwest, and 22 percent in the West.
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