Where Do the Most Croatian Americans Live?
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About 402,767 Americans report Croatian ancestry, and the map of where they live runs through steel country. The Pittsburgh metro area holds 26,838 of them, third among all metros, which is remarkable for a region that ranks 27th by population. Cleveland is fourth with 16,652.
That's the whole story of this group in two numbers. Croatians came for mill work, and their descendants largely stayed.
Largest Croatian populations by state
| Rank | State | Croatian residents |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | California | 46,442 |
| 2 | Pennsylvania | 42,002 |
| 3 | Illinois | 35,374 |
| 4 | Ohio | 34,716 |
| 5 | New York | 24,230 |
| 6 | Florida | 19,229 |
| 7 | Michigan | 16,112 |
| 8 | Washington | 14,150 |
Pennsylvania ranks second and Ohio fourth, which almost never happens in this series. For most ancestry groups the order runs California, Texas, Florida, New York by raw population. Here the Rust Belt outranks Texas entirely, and Texas doesn't make the top eight.
Largest Croatian populations by metro area
| Rank | Metro area | Croatian residents |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Chicago, IL | 35,272 |
| 2 | New York, NY | 28,239 |
| 3 | Pittsburgh, PA | 26,838 |
| 4 | Cleveland, OH | 16,652 |
| 5 | Los Angeles, CA | 15,771 |
| 6 | Seattle, WA | 8,430 |
| 7 | St. Louis, MO | 7,927 |
| 8 | San Francisco, CA | 7,193 |
Pittsburgh is the tell
Pittsburgh has 2.4 million residents and ranks 27th among metro areas. It holds the third-largest Croatian population in the country, ahead of Los Angeles, which has five times as many people. The city of Pittsburgh itself counts 2,183.
Croatian immigration to the United States peaked between roughly 1890 and 1914, and it went where the heavy industry was: the steel mills of western Pennsylvania and northeast Ohio, the mines, and the Chicago stockyards. Those arrivals built parishes and fraternal societies that anchored the community in place, and the descendants did not disperse the way later immigrant groups did.
The pattern matches other Southern and Eastern European ancestries in the same corridor. It's the same industrial geography we described in how the Rust Belt lost its factory jobs, mapped a century earlier and from the arrival side.
California leads on raw numbers
California tops the state list with 46,442, split between Los Angeles (15,771) and the Bay Area (7,193). Croatian settlement there is older than the industrial wave in some cases, tied to fishing and shipping in San Pedro and to the Gold Rush era, though the totals are smaller than the Midwest concentration relative to state size.
Seattle at 8,430 has a similar maritime history, with Croatian families in the fishing fleet out of Puget Sound. Washington ranks eighth among states at 14,150 on a population base far smaller than Texas or Florida.
At the city level New York leads with 9,297, followed by Chicago at 6,448 and Los Angeles at 5,202.
See the full ordering at largest Croatian population states and largest Croatian population metros, or the national profile on the Croatian Americans page. The comparable Italian pattern is in where the most Italian Americans live.
Sources
Figures are self-reported Croatian ancestry from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey, table B04006. Ancestry is self-reported and a person may report more than one, so ancestry totals across groups exceed the population.
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How many Croatian Americans are there?
About 402,767 people in the United States report Croatian ancestry, according to the Census Bureau's American Community Survey. California has the most with 46,442, followed by Pennsylvania (42,002), Illinois (35,374), and Ohio (34,716).
Which metro area has the most Croatian Americans?
Chicago leads with 35,272, followed by New York (28,239) and Pittsburgh (26,838). Pittsburgh is the standout because it ranks only 27th among metro areas by total population yet holds the third-largest Croatian community, ahead of Los Angeles.
Why do so many Croatian Americans live in the Rust Belt?
Croatian immigration to the United States peaked between roughly 1890 and 1914 and followed heavy industry: the steel mills of western Pennsylvania and northeast Ohio, the mines, and the Chicago stockyards. Parishes and fraternal societies anchored those communities, and the descendants largely stayed.
