States with the highest number of Irish*

All figures come from the U.S. Census Bureau Report.

The Census Bureau defines ancestry as a person's ethnic origin, racial heritage, descent, or "roots," which may reflect their place of birth, place of birth of parents or ancestors, and ethnic identities that have evolved within the United States.

All figures come from the U.S. Census Bureau Report issued in June 2004 Irish in America: "Irish" are defined as people who marked their ethnic origin as "Irish" on the Census survey in 1990 and/or 2000.

* Highest number as percentage of region population not total population.

State/Region (2000 population)	% of Region's Population	Ethnic Group Population
Massachusetts (6,349,097)	22.5	1,428,547
New Hampshire (1,235,786)	19.4	239,742
Rhode Island (1,048,319)	18.4	192,891
Delaware (783,600)	16.6	130,078
Connecticut (3,405,565)	16.6	565,324
Vermont (608,827)	16.4	99,848
Pennsylvania (12,281,054)	16.1	1,977,250
New Jersey (8,414,350)	15.9	1,337,882
Northeast * (53,594,378)	15.8	8,467,912
Maine (1,274,923)	15.1	192,513
Montana (902,195)	14.8	133,525
Iowa (2,926,324)	13.5	395,054
Nebraska (1,711,263)	13.4	229,309
Wyoming (493,782)	13.3	65,673
New York (18,976,457)	12.9	2,447,963
Missouri (5,595,211)	12.7	710,592
Ohio (11,353,140)	12.7	1,441,849
Colorado (4,301,261)	12.2	524,754
Illinois (12,419,293)	12.2	1,515,154
Oregon (3,421,399)	11.9	407,146
Midwest * (64,392,776)	11.8	7,598,348
Maryland (5,296,486)	11.7	619,689
Kansas (2,688,418)	11.5	309,168
Washington (5,894,121)	11.4	671,930
Minnesota (4,919,479)	11.2	550,982
Nevada (1,998,257)	11	219,808
West Virginia (1,808,344)	11	198,918
Wisconsin (5,363,675)	10.9	584,641
United States * (281,421,906)	10.8	30,393,566
Alaska (626,932)	10.8	67,709
Indiana (6,080,485)	10.8	656,692
Michigan (9,938,444)	10.7	1,063,414
Kentucky (4,041,769)	10.5	424,386
South Dakota (754,844)	10.4	78,504
Florida (15,982,378)	10.3	1,646,185
Oklahoma (3,450,654)	10.3	355,417
Arizona (5,130,632)	10.2	523,324
Idaho (1,293,953)	10	129,395
Virginia (7,078,515)	9.8	693,694
Arkansas (2,673,400)	9.5	253,973
Tennessee (5,689,283)	9.3	529,103
West * (63,197,932)	9	5,687,814
South * (100,236,820)	8.8	8,820,840
South Carolina (4,012,012)	7.9	316,949
Georgia (8,186,453)	7.8	638,543
California (33,871,648)	7.7	2,608,117
North Dakota (642,200)	7.7	49,449
Alabama (4,447,100)	7.7	342,427
North Carolina (8,049,313)	7.4	595,649
Texas (20,851,820)	7.2	1,501,331
Louisiana (4,468,976)	7	312,828
Mississippi (2,844,658)	6.9	196,281
Utah (2,233,169)	5.9	131,757
District of Columbia (572,059)	4.9	28,031

People in America Series: States with the highest number of Irish

"-": Rounds to 0.0.

Some ancestries are general may encompass several ancestries not listed separately (i.e., African American, White).

"NS": Not statistically different from zero at the 90-percent confidence level.

Notes: Because of sampling error, the estimates in this table may not be significantly different from one another or from other ancestries not listed in this table.

People who reported two ancestries were included once in each category. The estimates in this table differ slightly in some cases from the estimates in other data products due to the collapsing schemes used. For example, here German does not include Bavarian. Some groups correspond to groups identified separately in the race and Hispanic-origin questions. The race item provides the primary source of data for White, Black, American Indian, Alaska Native, Asian groups, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander groups. The Hispanic-origin question is the primary identifier for Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, and other Hispanic groups.



Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 1990 Census and Census 2000 special tabulations.