Ethnicity and nationality
According to 2022 estimates from the American Community Survey, the largest self-reported ancestries in New York City were Dominican (8.7%), Chinese (7.5%), Puerto Rican (6.9%), Italian (5.5%), Mexican (4.4%), Irish (4.4%), Asian Indian (3.1%), German (2.9%), Jamaican (2.4%), Ecuadorian (2.3%), English (2.1%), Polish (1.9%), Russian (1.7%), Arab (1.4%), Haitian (1.4%), Guyanese (1.3%), Filipino (1.1%), and Korean (1.1%).
Historical Demographics | 2020 | 2010 | 1990 | 1970 | 1940 |
| White (non-Hispanic) | 30.9% | 33.3% | 43.4% | 64.0% | 92.1% |
| Hispanic or Latino | 28.3% | 28.6% | 23.7% | 15.2% | 1.6% |
| Black or African American (non-Hispanic) | 20.2% | 22.8% | 28.8% | 21.1% | 6.1% |
| Asian and Pacific Islander (non-Hispanic) | 15.6% | 12.6% | 7.0% | 1.2% | 0.2% |
| Native American (non-Hispanic) | 0.2% | 0.2% | 0.4% | 0.1% | N/A |
| Two or more races (non-Hispanic) | 3.4% | 1.8% | N/A | N/A | N/A |
Based on American Community Survey data from 2018 to 2022, approximately 36.3% of the city's population is foreign born (compared to 13.7% nationwide), and 40% of all children are born to mothers who are immigrants. Throughout its history, New York has been a major port of entry for immigrants. No single country or region of origin dominates. Queens has the largest Asian American and Andean populations in the United States, and is also the most ethnically and linguistically diverse urban area in the world.
The metropolitan area has the largest Asian Indian population in the Western Hemisphere; the largest Russian American, Italian American, and African American populations; the largest Dominican American, Puerto Rican American, and South American and second-largest overall Hispanic population in the United States, numbering over 5 million. Venezuela, Ecuador, Colombia, Guyana, Peru, and Brazil, are the top source countries from South America for immigrants to the New York City region; the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Haiti, and Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean; Nigeria, Egypt, Ghana, Tanzania, Kenya, and South Africa from Africa; and El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala in Central America.
New York contains the highest total Asian population of any U.S. city proper. Asian Americans in New York City, according to the 2010 census, number more than 1.2 million, greater than the combined totals of San Francisco and Los Angeles. New York has the largest Chinese population of any city outside Asia, Manhattan's Chinatown is the highest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere, and Queens is home to the largest Tibetan population outside Asia. Arab Americans number over 160,000 in New York City, with the highest concentration in Brooklyn. New York City has the highest Palestinian population in the United States. Central Asians, primarily Uzbek Americans, are a rapidly growing segment of the city's non-Hispanic White population. The metropolitan area is home to 20% of the nation's Indian Americans and at least twenty Little India enclaves, and 15% of all Korean Americans and four Koreatowns.
New York City has the largest European and non-Hispanic white population of any American city, numbering 2.7 million in 2012. The European diaspora residing in the city is very diverse and many European ethnic groups have formed enclaves. With 960,000 Jewish inhabitants as of 2023, New York City is home to the highest Jewish population of any city in the world, and its metropolitan area concentrated over 2 million Jews as of 2021, the second largest Jewish population worldwide after the Tel Aviv metropolitan area in Israel. In the borough of Brooklyn, an estimated one in four residents was Jewish as of 2018.
