Total population | |
---|---|
735,128 0.3% of the U.S. population |
|
Regions with significant populations | |
New York, California, Pennsylvania, Florida, New Jersey | |
Languages | |
German (especially Austrian German), American English | |
Religion | |
Roman Catholic, Protestant; Jewish and other minorities | |
Related ethnic groups | |
Dutch Americans German Americans Swiss Americans German diaspora |
735,128
Austrian Americans (German: Austroamerikaner) are European Americans of Austrian descent. According to the 2000 U.S. census, there were 735,128 Americans of full or partial Austrian descent, accounting for 0.3% of the population. The states with the largest Austrian American populations were New York (93,083), California (84,959), Pennsylvania (58,002) (most of them in the Lehigh Valley), Florida (54,214), New Jersey (45,154), and Ohio (27,017). This may be an undercount, as many German Americans have ancestors from Austria, the Austrian Empire or the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which was a major source of immigrants to the United States before World War I. Before World War I, by which time a large percentage of Germans had immigrated to the United States, Austrians were often categorized as German people, largely because of their shared cultural-linguistic and ethnic origin and Austria being one of many historical German states of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation.
Before World War II, Austrian migration to United States was difficult to determine, because Austria as an independent country was established in 1918, being until this moment a multicultural Empire. However, after the initial wave of settlers, Austrian immigration was low during the first half of the nineteenth century. During this period, fewer than 1,000 Austrians emigrated to the United States.