More than half (53%) of the nation’s Hispanics lived in 15 metropolitan areas in 2014 (see chart to the right for a list of these areas). There were 11 metropolitan areas where at least 1 million Hispanics resided.
Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim topped the list with 6 million Hispanics in 2014. About one-in-ten (11%) Hispanics nationwide live in this one metropolitan area. And this metropolitan area has more Hispanics than all but two states: California and Texas.
The New York-Newark-Jersey City and Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach metropolitan areas round out the top three by Hispanic population, with 4.8 million and 2.6 million Hispanics, respectively. These top three metropolitan areas account for about a quarter (24%) of the nation’s Hispanic population: 9% of all Hispanics nationwide livein the New York-Newark-Jersey City metropolitan area and 5% live in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach area.
Among the top 15 metropolitan areas, nine are located within two states – California (four) and Texas (five). In addition to Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, top Hispanic metropolitan areas located in California are Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario (with 2.2 million Hispanics), San Diego-Carlsbad (1.1 million Hispanics) and San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward (1 million). In Texas, the following metropolitan areas fall within the top 15 for Hispanic populations nationally: Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land (2.3 million Hispanics), Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington (1.9 million), San Antonio-New Braunfels (1.3 million), McAllen-Edinburg-Mission (800,000) and El Paso (700,000 Hispanics). Two of the top 15 metropolitan areas are in Florida: Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach and Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford, each with 600,000 Hispanics.
Among the top 15 metropolitan areas, most of the Hispanic populations are majority U.S. born. There are two notable exceptions: Hispanics in Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach and Washington-Arlington-Alexandria (in D.C., Virginia, Maryland and West Virginia) are majority foreign born. About six-in-ten Hispanics (61%) in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach metropolitan area and more than half (53%) of Hispanics in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area are foreign born.
The geographic settlement of Hispanics across the U.S. is linked to Hispanic origin. For example, 79% of the Hispanics living in Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim and 76% of Hispanics in Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land were of Mexican origin in 2014. Hispanics of Mexican origin are dominant groups in other metropolitan areas in the Southwest border states. 1 And in some metropolitan areas, such as El Centro, California, and McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, Texas, nearly all Hispanics are of Mexican origin (98% and 97%, respectively).
In metropolitan areas along the East Coast, the origins of the Hispanic populations are more diverse. While the Hispanic population residing in the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, Georgia, metropolitan area is predominately of Mexican origin, Puerto Ricans and Dominicans are the largest Hispanic origin groups in New York-Newark-Jersey City and Providence-Warwick, Rhode Island-Massachusetts. In Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, 43% of Hispanics were of Cuban origin in 2014. And in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area, a third of Hispanics were of Salvadoran origin.
