Where Do the Most Argentine Americans Live?

The U.S. Census Bureau counts 320,296 people of Argentine origin nationwide, a fraction of the larger Hispanic populations, and they do not pile into one state the way some groups do. Florida leads with 77,897, but that is under a quarter of the national total, and California, New York, Texas, and New Jersey all hold substantial shares. Where the group does concentrate, it tends to favor affluent, professional suburbs rather than a single historic enclave.

Largest Argentine populations by metro area

Largest Argentine populations by city

South Florida leads, but not the way Miami usually does

The Miami metro area holds 57,317 Argentine Americans, the largest of any metro and about 18 percent of the national count. That is a clear lead, but it is nothing like the near-monopoly Miami holds over some other South American and Caribbean groups. Argentine settlement here spreads across the northern and western suburbs rather than a single downtown core.

Inside the metro, the city of Miami counts 6,781, but the next-largest clusters sit in Miami Beach at 4,096, Weston in western Broward County at 2,611, and Aventura at 2,550. These are among the more affluent addresses in the region, and the pattern fits a migration that has drawn heavily on Argentina's professional and middle classes, especially in the waves that followed the country's 2001 economic collapse and the currency crises since.

A genuinely bicoastal group

What sets Argentine Americans apart from the more Florida-locked groups is how much weight sits elsewhere. The New York metro holds 42,144, close behind Miami, and the city of New York itself is the single largest city in the country for this group at 14,740. New Jersey adds 19,839 statewide, much of it in the same metropolitan orbit.

The West Coast carries real numbers too. California ranks second among all states with 52,295, led by Los Angeles at 25,420 and the city of Los Angeles at 8,263, with a further 6,785 in Riverside and 6,085 around San Francisco. Add the 14,316 in the Washington, DC area and 10,420 in Houston, and the picture is of a community anchored in three or four major job markets rather than one exile capital.

How dispersed the group really is

Florida at 77,897, California at 52,295, New York at 28,334, Texas at 22,018, and New Jersey at 19,839 together hold about 63 percent of the national total. For most groups in this series a single state carries close to that share on its own. Here it takes five to get there, which is a good short description of what a smaller, later, professional-class migration looks like on the map.

The full ordering

To see every place ranked, compare the largest Argentine population metros, the largest Argentine population cities, and the largest Argentine population states. Because the group is small, the highest Argentine share cities surface a different set of places, the smaller towns where the group makes up a larger slice of the population. You can also line up any two places side by side with the compare tool, or read the fuller national profile on the Argentine Americans origin page.

Sources

Population figures come from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey. Rankings referenced in this post: largest Argentine population metros, largest Argentine population cities, and largest Argentine population states.