Demographics of The Bronx
Encyclopedia
The demographics of the Bronx are characterized by a Hispanic
majority (unique among New York City
's boroughs) and by the lowest percentage of Whites
among all boroughs.
At the 2010 U.S. Census, there were 1,385,108 people residing in Bronx, an increase of 3.9% since 2000.
The U.S. Census considers the Bronx to be the most diverse area in the country. There is an 89.7 percent chance that any two residents, chosen at random, would be of different race or ethnicity.
As of the census
of 2000, there were 1,332,650 people, 463,212 households, and 314,984 families residing in the borough of The Bronx
in New York City
. The population density
was 12,242.2/km² (31,709.3/mi²). There were 490,659 housing units at an average density of 4,507.4/km² (11,674.8/mi²). The racial makeup of the borough was 35.64% Black or African American
, 29.87% White, 0.85% Native American, 3.01% Asian
, 0.10% Pacific Islander, 24.74% from other races
, and 5.78% from two or more races. 48.38% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. 14.5% of the population were whites, not of Hispanic origins. The Bronx has the largest number of Puerto Ricans than any other county in the United States. It also has one of the highest percentages of Dominicans
in the U.S. with 14.5%, respectively.
Based on sample data from the same census, the U.S. Census Bureau estimates that 47.29% of the population 5 and older speak only English
at home. 43.67% speak Spanish at home, either exclusively or along with English. Other languages or groups of languages spoken at home by more than 0.25% of the population of the Bronx include Italian
(1.36%), Kru, Ibo, or Yoruba
(3.07%), French/French Creole
(2.72%), and Albanian
(2.54%).
There were 463,212 households out of which 38.1% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 31.4% were married couples
living together, 30.4% had a female householder with no husband present, and 32.0% were non-families. 27.4% of all households were made up of individuals and 9.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.78 and the average family size was 3.37.
In the borough the population was spread out with 29.8% under the age of 18, 10.6% from 18 to 24, 30.7% from 25 to 44, 18.8% from 45 to 64, and 10.1% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 31 years. For every 100 females there were 87.0 males. For every 100 females age 18 and older, there were 80.7 males.
The median income for a household in the borough was $27,611, and the median income for a family was $30,682. Males had a median income of $31,178 versus $29,429 for females. The per capita income
for the borough was $13,959. About 28.0% of families and 30.7% of the population were below the poverty line, including 41.5% of those under age 18 and 21.3% of those age 65 or over.
made 12.1% of the population. The 2010 Census puts the percentage of non-Hispanic Whites at 10.9% of the population.
The number of non-Hispanic Whites in the Bronx has been shrinking for decades. People of Irish descent number over 35,500 individuals and make up 2.6% of the population. German Americans and Polish Americans make up 1.4% and 0.8% of the population respectively.
Some main European ancestries of Bronx residents, 2000 (percentage of total borough population):
Over 526,200 blacks reside in the borough, of which 419,600 are non-Hispanic blacks. Over 61,000 people identified themselves as "Sub-Saharan African" in the survey, making up 4.4% of the population. Those whose ancestors have been in the United States since before the end of slavery are one group. Another is those of Caribbean ancestry. Colin Powell
, a son of Jamaican immigrants, grew up in the Bronx. Some people have ancestries from both these groups, and like most African-American communities many people in both these groups have European and Native American ancestry as well. A third group, that is actually more internally diverse than these other two is African immigrants. They hail primarily from West Africa. The largest numbers come from Nigeria, but other nations such as Liberia, Ghana, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast, to name just a few, have contributed to this population.
Although having fewer Asians than other borough of New York, there are some Asian groups more numerous in the Bronx than elsewhere in the city. In 2000 the Bronx had the most Cambodians, the only New York borough with over 1000 Cambodians, they numbered 1366 in the Bronx. Asian Indians were the Bronx's most numerous Asian group, numbering 19305. There were 7628 Chinese in the borough, and 5446 Filipinos. Koreans numbered 4076. The total for Vietnamese was 3289 while Bangladeshis were counted at 2442. The only other Asian group numbering over 1000 in the city was the 1727 Pakistanis.
Hispanic and Latino Americans
Hispanic or Latino Americans are Americans with origins in the Hispanic countries of Latin America or in Spain, and in general all persons in the United States who self-identify as Hispanic or Latino.1990 Census of Population and Housing: A self-designated classification for people whose origins...
majority (unique among New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
's boroughs) and by the lowest percentage of Whites
White American
White Americans are people of the United States who are considered or consider themselves White. The United States Census Bureau defines White people as those "having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa...
among all boroughs.
At the 2010 U.S. Census, there were 1,385,108 people residing in Bronx, an increase of 3.9% since 2000.
The U.S. Census considers the Bronx to be the most diverse area in the country. There is an 89.7 percent chance that any two residents, chosen at random, would be of different race or ethnicity.
Demographics from the 2010 Census
According to the 2010 Census, 10.9% of the population was non-Hispanic White, 30.1% non-Hispanic Black or African American, 3.4% non-Hispanic Asian, 0.6% from some other race (non-Hispanic) and 1.2% of two or more races (non-Hispanic). 53.5% of Bronx's population was of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin (they may be of any race).Demographics from the 2000 Census
Census
A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common...
of 2000, there were 1,332,650 people, 463,212 households, and 314,984 families residing in the borough of The Bronx
The Bronx
The Bronx is the northernmost of the five boroughs of New York City. It is also known as Bronx County, the last of the 62 counties of New York State to be incorporated...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. The population density
Population density
Population density is a measurement of population per unit area or unit volume. It is frequently applied to living organisms, and particularly to humans...
was 12,242.2/km² (31,709.3/mi²). There were 490,659 housing units at an average density of 4,507.4/km² (11,674.8/mi²). The racial makeup of the borough was 35.64% Black or African American
Race (United States Census)
Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, as defined by the Federal Office of Management and Budget and the United States Census Bureau, are self-identification data items in which residents choose the race or races with which they most closely identify, and indicate whether or not they are...
, 29.87% White, 0.85% Native American, 3.01% Asian
Asian American
Asian Americans are Americans of Asian descent. The U.S. Census Bureau definition of Asians as "Asian” refers to a person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent, including, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan,...
, 0.10% Pacific Islander, 24.74% from other races
Race (United States Census)
Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, as defined by the Federal Office of Management and Budget and the United States Census Bureau, are self-identification data items in which residents choose the race or races with which they most closely identify, and indicate whether or not they are...
, and 5.78% from two or more races. 48.38% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. 14.5% of the population were whites, not of Hispanic origins. The Bronx has the largest number of Puerto Ricans than any other county in the United States. It also has one of the highest percentages of Dominicans
Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic is a nation on the island of La Hispaniola, part of the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. The western third of the island is occupied by the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands that are shared by two countries...
in the U.S. with 14.5%, respectively.
Based on sample data from the same census, the U.S. Census Bureau estimates that 47.29% of the population 5 and older speak only English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
at home. 43.67% speak Spanish at home, either exclusively or along with English. Other languages or groups of languages spoken at home by more than 0.25% of the population of the Bronx include Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
(1.36%), Kru, Ibo, or Yoruba
Yoruba language
Yorùbá is a Niger–Congo language spoken in West Africa by approximately 20 million speakers. The native tongue of the Yoruba people, it is spoken, among other languages, in Nigeria, Benin, and Togo and in communities in other parts of Africa, Europe and the Americas...
(3.07%), French/French Creole
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
(2.72%), and Albanian
Albanian language
Albanian is an Indo-European language spoken by approximately 7.6 million people, primarily in Albania and Kosovo but also in other areas of the Balkans in which there is an Albanian population, including western Macedonia, southern Montenegro, southern Serbia and northwestern Greece...
(2.54%).
There were 463,212 households out of which 38.1% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 31.4% were married couples
Marriage
Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...
living together, 30.4% had a female householder with no husband present, and 32.0% were non-families. 27.4% of all households were made up of individuals and 9.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.78 and the average family size was 3.37.
In the borough the population was spread out with 29.8% under the age of 18, 10.6% from 18 to 24, 30.7% from 25 to 44, 18.8% from 45 to 64, and 10.1% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 31 years. For every 100 females there were 87.0 males. For every 100 females age 18 and older, there were 80.7 males.
The median income for a household in the borough was $27,611, and the median income for a family was $30,682. Males had a median income of $31,178 versus $29,429 for females. The per capita income
Per capita income
Per capita income or income per person is a measure of mean income within an economic aggregate, such as a country or city. It is calculated by taking a measure of all sources of income in the aggregate and dividing it by the total population...
for the borough was $13,959. About 28.0% of families and 30.7% of the population were below the poverty line, including 41.5% of those under age 18 and 21.3% of those age 65 or over.
White population
Out of all five boroughs, The Bronx has the lowest number and percentage of white residents. At the 2009 American Community Survey, Whites, of both Hispanic and non-Hispanic origin, represented 24.4% of the population, while non-Hispanic WhitesNon-Hispanic Whites
Non-Hispanic Whites or White, Not Hispanic or Latino are people in the United States, as defined by the Census Bureau, who are of the White race and are not of Hispanic or Latino origin/ethnicity. Hence the designation is exclusive in the sense that it defines who is not included as opposed to who is...
made 12.1% of the population. The 2010 Census puts the percentage of non-Hispanic Whites at 10.9% of the population.
The number of non-Hispanic Whites in the Bronx has been shrinking for decades. People of Irish descent number over 35,500 individuals and make up 2.6% of the population. German Americans and Polish Americans make up 1.4% and 0.8% of the population respectively.
Some main European ancestries of Bronx residents, 2000 (percentage of total borough population):
- ItalianItalian AmericanAn Italian American , is an American of Italian ancestry. The designation may also refer to someone possessing Italian and American dual citizenship...
: 5.2% - IrishIrish AmericanIrish Americans are citizens of the United States who can trace their ancestry to Ireland. A total of 36,278,332 Americans—estimated at 11.9% of the total population—reported Irish ancestry in the 2008 American Community Survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau...
: 3.2% - Albanian : 2.54%
- GermanGerman AmericanGerman Americans are citizens of the United States of German ancestry and comprise about 51 million people, or 17% of the U.S. population, the country's largest self-reported ancestral group...
: 1.3%
Black and African American population
At the 2009 American Community Survey, Blacks represented 37.5% of the population, with 30.8% being non-Hispanic Blacks.Over 526,200 blacks reside in the borough, of which 419,600 are non-Hispanic blacks. Over 61,000 people identified themselves as "Sub-Saharan African" in the survey, making up 4.4% of the population. Those whose ancestors have been in the United States since before the end of slavery are one group. Another is those of Caribbean ancestry. Colin Powell
Colin Powell
Colin Luther Powell is an American statesman and a retired four-star general in the United States Army. He was the 65th United States Secretary of State, serving under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005. He was the first African American to serve in that position. During his military...
, a son of Jamaican immigrants, grew up in the Bronx. Some people have ancestries from both these groups, and like most African-American communities many people in both these groups have European and Native American ancestry as well. A third group, that is actually more internally diverse than these other two is African immigrants. They hail primarily from West Africa. The largest numbers come from Nigeria, but other nations such as Liberia, Ghana, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast, to name just a few, have contributed to this population.
Native American population
Native Americans are a very small minority in the borough. Only some 5,560 individuals (out of the borough's 1.4 million people) are Native American, which is equal to just 0.4% of the population. In addition, roughly 2,500 people are Native Americans of non-Hispanic origin.Asian population
Asians are a small but sizable minority in the borough. At the 2009 American Community Survey 3.8% of Bronx's population was Asian.- Indian 1.0%
- Chinese 0.7%
- Filipino 0.5%
- Vietnamese 0.2%
- Japanese 0.1%
- Korean 0.1%
Although having fewer Asians than other borough of New York, there are some Asian groups more numerous in the Bronx than elsewhere in the city. In 2000 the Bronx had the most Cambodians, the only New York borough with over 1000 Cambodians, they numbered 1366 in the Bronx. Asian Indians were the Bronx's most numerous Asian group, numbering 19305. There were 7628 Chinese in the borough, and 5446 Filipinos. Koreans numbered 4076. The total for Vietnamese was 3289 while Bangladeshis were counted at 2442. The only other Asian group numbering over 1000 in the city was the 1727 Pakistanis.
Multiracial population
People identifying multiracial heritage are also a sizable minority in The Bronx, numbering over 41,800 individuals and represent 3.0% of the population. People of mixed Caucasian and African American heritage number over 6,850 members and form 0.5% of the population. People of mixed Caucasian and Native American heritage number over 2,450 members and form 0.2% of the population. People of mixed Caucasian and Asian heritage number over 880 members and form 0.1% of the population. People of mixed African American and Native American heritage number over 1,220 members and form 0.1% of the population.Hispanics and Latino population
The Bronx is the only New York borough with a Hispanic majority. At the 2010 Census, 53.5% of Bronx's population was of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin (they may be of any race). At the 2009 American Community Survey, Puerto Ricans represented 23.2% of the borough's population, Mexicans made 5.2%. In 2005, more than 200,000 Dominicans called the Bronx home, and in 2000 Dominicans made 14.5% of the Bronx population.Languages
Approximately 44.3% of the population over the age of 5 speak only English at home, which is roughly 570,000 people. The majority (55.7%) of the population speak non-English languages at home. Over 580,600 people (45.2% of the population) speak Spanish at home.Immigration
At the 2009 American Community Survey, 31.9% of Bronx's population was foreign born and another 8.5% was born in Puerto Rico, U.S. Island areas, or born abroad to American parent(s).| Bronx residents born abroad or overseas, 1930 and 2000 | |||||
| 1930 United States Census | 2000 United States Census | ||||
| Total population of the Bronx | 1,265,258 | Total population of the Bronx | 1,332,650 | ||
| All born abroad or overseas ‡ | 524,410 | 39.4% | |||
| Puerto Rico Puerto Rico Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an... |
126,649 | 9.5% | |||
| Foreign-born Whites | 477,342 | 37.7% | All foreign-born | 385,827 | 29.0% |
| White persons born in Russia Russia Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects... |
135,210 | 10.7% | Dominican Republic Dominican Republic The Dominican Republic is a nation on the island of La Hispaniola, part of the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. The western third of the island is occupied by the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands that are shared by two countries... |
124,032 | 9.3% |
| White persons born in Italy Italy Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and... |
67,732 | 5.4% | Jamaica Jamaica Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic... |
51,120 | 3.8% |
| White persons born in Poland Poland Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north... |
55,969 | 4.4% | Mexico Mexico The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of... |
20,962 | 1.6% |
| White persons born in Germany Germany Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate... |
43,349 | 3.4% | Guyana Guyana Guyana , officially the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, previously the colony of British Guiana, is a sovereign state on the northern coast of South America that is culturally part of the Anglophone Caribbean. Guyana was a former colony of the Dutch and of the British... |
14,868 | 1.1% |
| White persons born in the Irish Free State † | 34,538 | 2.7% | Ecuador Ecuador Ecuador , officially the Republic of Ecuador is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is one of only two countries in South America, along with Chile, that do not have a border... |
14,800 | 1.1% |
| Other foreign birthplaces of Whites | 140,544 | 11.1% | Other foreign birthplaces | 160,045 | 12.0% |
| † the 26 counties now within the Republic of Ireland Republic of Ireland Ireland , described as the Republic of Ireland , is a sovereign state in Europe occupying approximately five-sixths of the island of the same name. Its capital is Dublin. Ireland, which had a population of 4.58 million in 2011, is a constitutional republic governed as a parliamentary democracy,... |
‡ beyond the 50 states & District of Columbia | ||||