Where Do the Most Mexican Americans Live?

Mexican Americans are the largest Hispanic origin group in the United States by a wide margin. About 37,921,535 people trace their origin to Mexico, more than eight times the size of the next largest group in this series. That single fact reshapes how you read the map: while other origin groups cluster in one or two metros, Mexican origin population spreads across the entire Southwest, follows the border, and reaches deep into cities that most people would not guess.

Largest Mexican populations by metro area

Largest Mexican populations by city

Two states hold more than half the national total between them. California counts 12,695,747 residents of Mexican origin, and Texas adds 9,677,014. Together that's over 22 million, well past half of everyone counted nationwide. No other origin group in this series concentrates so much of its population in just two states while still sustaining large communities almost everywhere else.

California and the Los Angeles anchor

The single largest concentration sits in Southern California. The Los Angeles metro area alone holds 4,356,284 people of Mexican origin, a number larger than the entire Mexican origin population of any state except California and Texas. Just to the east, the Riverside metro adds another 2,118,368, and San Diego contributes 975,588 near the border.

Within the city limits, the city of Los Angeles counts 1,137,265 residents of Mexican origin, the most of any city in the country. San Diego the city adds 347,362. California's totals are so large because Mexican migration to the state runs back more than a century, through agricultural labor, rail work, and the industrial growth of Los Angeles.

Texas and the border cities

Texas is the other pillar. The Houston metro holds 1,942,584 people of Mexican origin, Dallas holds 1,838,097, and San Antonio holds 1,205,294. The state's big cities carry huge counts on their own: the city of San Antonio has 795,480 residents of Mexican origin, second only to Los Angeles, and Houston has 654,491.

Then there's El Paso, with 515,146 people of Mexican origin. El Paso sits directly on the border across from Ciudad Juarez, and its numbers show what a border city looks like when the population is overwhelmingly of a single origin. Dallas the city adds another 437,505.

Phoenix, the Southwest, and the mountain states

Arizona ranks third among states with 1,987,288 residents of Mexican origin. Most of that sits in the Phoenix metro, which holds 1,322,316, and the city of Phoenix itself counts 600,987. The desert Southwest, from Arizona through the interior mountain west, has long been Mexican origin territory going back to the era before these lands were part of the United States.

The pattern continues into the mountain and Pacific states. Colorado counts 927,743 people of Mexican origin, and Washington counts 846,993. Washington's numbers reflect decades of agricultural labor in the Yakima and Columbia basin regions.

Chicago, the Midwest exception

Almost every large concentration follows the Southwest and the border, with one clear break in the pattern. The Chicago metro holds 1,727,884 people of Mexican origin, and the city of Chicago counts 582,711. That makes Illinois, with 1,825,458 statewide, the fourth largest state for Mexican origin population, even though it sits far from the border.

Chicago's community grew out of early twentieth century industrial recruitment: steel mills, meatpacking, and railroads pulled Mexican workers north to the Great Lakes long before the postwar migration waves. That history is why the Midwest's largest Mexican origin center rivals the border metros in size.

What the map shows

Add up the eight largest metros and you can see the shape of it: Los Angeles, Riverside, Houston, Dallas, Chicago, Phoenix, San Antonio, and San Diego account for a large share of the national total on their own. The geography traces the historical border, the old Mexican Southwest, and the labor routes that carried workers into California agriculture, Texas cities, Arizona deserts, and Chicago factories.

You can see the full ordering on the metros ranking, the cities ranking, and the states ranking. To line up any two places side by side, use the compare tool.

Sources

Population figures come from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey. Rankings drawn from the largest Mexican population metros, largest Mexican population cities, and largest Mexican population states.