List of U.S. cities with large Filipino American populations

Cities with large Filipino 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 is based on the 2005-2009 American Community Survey.

Filipino Americans are fairly widely spread around the United States, but are mostly concentrated within the West Coast. About 480,000 people of Filipino descent make their homes in Southern California. Los Angeles County holds the largest Filipino settlement in the United States, with over 262,600 members of the group, followed by San Diego County, with nearly 121,000 Filipinos. Daly City, in the San Francisco Bay Area, has the highest concentration of Filipino Americans of any municipality in the U.S., with them comprising about 35% of the city's population, or 35,000 people.

Large cities

Rank	City	State	Filipino-Americans	Percentage
1	Honolulu	Hawaii	&1000000000004285900000042,859	&1000000000000001140000011.4
2	San Diego	California	&1000000000007436000000074,360	&100000000000000057000005.7
3	San Jose	California	&1000000000005353300000053,533	&100000000000000057000005.7
4	San Francisco	California	&1000000000003718200000037,182	&100000000000000047000004.7
5	Long Beach	California	&1000000000002117100000021,171	&100000000000000045999994.6
6	Virginia Beach	Virginia	&1000000000001516600000015,166	&100000000000000035000003.5
6	Los Angeles	California	&10000000000118353000000118,353	&100000000000000031000003.1
7	Sacramento	California	&1000000000001429900000014,299	&100000000000000031000003.1
8	Las Vegas	Nevada	&1000000000001559600000015,596	&100000000000000027999992.8
9	Seattle	Washington	&1000000000001600900000016,009	&100000000000000027000002.7
10	Queens (borough)	New York	&1000000000003965000000039,650	&100000000000000017000001.7
11	Oakland	California	&100000000000059470000005,947	&100000000000000015000001.5
12	Fresno	California	&100000000000057930000005,793	&100000000000000011999991.2
13	Chicago	Illinois	&1000000000003147800000031,478	&100000000000000011000001.1
14	Plano	Texas	&100000000000026860000002,686	&100000000000000010000001.0

California

The two largest centers of settlement of Filipinos in the nation are the regions of Northern and Southern California.

In Northern California, San Francisco and the Central Valley in cities such as Sacramento, Stockton, Lathrop, Tulare, Porterville and Fresno are major Filipino American concentrations.

San Francisco alone is home to 40,072 Filipinos, by the estimate of the 2000 U.S. Census. Many Filipinos also live in the counties surrounding the San Francisco Bay Area, with 68,680 in Alameda County, 34,436 in Contra Costa County, 60,144 in San Mateo County, 77,815 in Santa Clara County, and 35,862 in Solano County.

Daly City, in San Mateo County, has one of the largest Filipino communities in the Bay Area, with an estimated Filipino population of over 32,000. Further inland, an estimated 24,045 Filipino Americans live in Sacramento and another 21,167 in San Joaquin County but a large number are in Kern County esp. in the towns of Arvin and Delano.

There are more Filipino Americans in Southern California, but its population is more dispersed. Concentrations include Historic Filipinotown (the only such in the nation), Carson, Cerritos, West Covina, Walnut, Panorama City, Eagle Rock, East Hollywood, Anaheim, Moreno Valley, Banning, Palm Springs and Indio among others.

Concentrations in the San Diego area include Mira Mesa, Rancho Bernardo, National City and Chula Vista. Also a sizable Filipino American community is found in the Inland Empire, California region of San Bernardino, Riverside, the Coachella Valley and the Imperial Valley.

Approximate Filipino population in key Southern California areas. Filipino American Concentrations:

• Los Angeles/Historic Filipinotown/East Hollywood - 30,000

• Eagle Rock/Glendale - 24,000

• Cerritos/Buena Park - 25,000

• Long Beach/West Long Beach/Carson - 46,000

• West Covina/Walnut/Diamond Bar - 28,000

• Panorama City/Arleta/North Hollywood - 22,000

• San Diego/National City/Paradise Hills/Chula Vista - 46,000

• Mira Mesa/Rancho Peñasquitos/Rancho Bernardo - 45,000

• Orange County: 25,000 estimated in the year 2009^{[citation needed]}, the majority reside in Anaheim, Irvine, Santa Ana and Tustin.

• Inland Empire: An estimated 10,000 in the region, most concentrated in the cities of Moreno Valley, Corona, Upland, Victorville, Perris, Banning and Coachella, and Imperial County.^{[citation needed]}

Hawaii

Hawaii has a long history of Filipino migration, starting with the plantation days. Filipinos and part-Filipinos constitute nearly 23% of the Hawaii state population, with 70% of them living on the island of Oahu. Its geographic confines contain as many as 275,000 Filipinos (2000 Census) and receives an annual amount of 4,000 new Filipino immigrants.

Washington State

Washington state’s Filipino Americans are clustered around the Seattle area, mainly in King, Kitsap, Pierce and Snohomish counties.

Some sizable concentrations of Filipino Americans are in the South Seattle neighborhood, and in the Puget Sound area: Bremerton and Silverdale area of Kitsap County. There are usually Filipino festivals held at Seattle's Seattle Center every year.

Washington state has around 84,000 Filipinos making the Filipino-American community the largest Asian-American subgroup and the sixth largest reported single ancestry in the state.

Seattle-Tacoma

Seattle has many Filipino enclaves, especially in the southern part of the city. The community even established its own Filipino Community Center that serves to a number of Filipino-American events and as well as creating its own civic organization. The city is also rich with Filipino-American culture, history, and commerce.

Spokane

A sizable Filipino community in Spokane, the largest of the area's 11 to 15,000 Asian Americans, has grown by the migratory movement of farm labor in the late 20th century into the eastern half of the state (e.g. the Yakima Valley).^{[citation needed]}

Northeast

Filipino American communities are thriving in the New York City and Washington, DC metro areas including Northern Virginia.

New York and New Jersey

Outside of California, one of the nation’s largest settlements of Filipino Americans is New York City, where nearly 60,000 Filipino Americans live. Within New York, the heaviest concentration is in the borough of Queens, with 32,843 members of the group. However, since Queens is a dense urban area, where over two million people live, Filipinos make up only about 1.5% of the total population of the borough. In New Jersey, Bergen County (14,898 Filipino Americans), Hudson County (19,877) and Middlesex County (12,499) all have substantial numbers of Filipino Americans. All three New Jersey counties are in the New York City area, making the urban region of New York-New Jersey the primary settlement of Filipino Americans in the Northeast.

Midwest

In the Midwest, Filipino Americans have settled most heavily in the area of Chicago, Illinois. According to census estimates, 27,874 Filipinos live in the city of Chicago in 2000, and 54,595 lived in Chicago’s Cook County. Another 14,111 live in DuPage County, and 6,988 in Lake County, both of which are in metropolitan Chicago. Nearly all the Filipinos in Illinois are concentrated in the Chicago region.

The Kansas City, Missouri area has a small but present Filipino community. There is a Fiesta de los Pilipinas held there every July.

Denver, Colorado and Colorado Springs, Colorado have a fairly sizable Filipino population, especially Colorado Springs in particular due to the US Army and US Air Force bases located there.

Filipinos are thought to be sparse in the Midwest/Central states, but there's a growing Filipino American population in the 2000s.

The South

The South is also noted for its sizable and growing Fil-Am population.^{[citation needed]} In Florida, for example, about one out of every five Filipino Americans in the state lives in Jacksonville. Jacksonville's Filipino American population on the 2010 Census was 14,458. Texas and Louisiana have the fastest growing Fil-Am populations.^{[citation needed]} Also, a sizable community has existed for decades in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia, home to many U.S. Navy bases. In the 1930s, the Tydings-McDuffie Act essentially halted Filipino immigration to the U.S.; however, the Navy actively recruited in the Philippines (at that time still a U.S. possession), and Filipinos in the Navy were exempt from the provisions of the Act. This led to many Filipino communities forming around naval bases.

Other Areas

In most other parts of the U.S., Filipinos are fairly dispersed, even in states with large numbers such as Georgia (Atlanta) and Minnesota (i.e. the Minneapolis/St. Paul area), although there are a few clusters smaller than those of the West (i.e. Utah) and the Northeast (i.e. the Philadelphia metro area).

See also

• Filipino Americans
• Little Manila

References

• Bankston, Carl L. (2006) Filipino Americans. pp. 189–203 in Pyong Gap Min (ed.) Asian Americans: Contemporary Trends and Issues, Second Edition. Thousand Oaks, Ca.: Pine Forge Press.
• U.S. Bureau of the Census. 2000 Census of Population and Housing: Summary File 4, Sample Data

Sources

• American Census Factfinder