The demographics of Chicago show that it is a very large ethnically and culturally diverse metropolis. It is the third largest city and metropolitan area in the United States by population. Chicago was home to over 2.7 million people in 2020, accounting for over 25% of the population in the Chicago metropolitan area, home to approximately 9.6 million.
The racial makeup of the city in 2020 was 35.9% White, 29.2% Black, 7.0% Asian, 0.1% Native American or Alaska Native, 10.8% from two or more races, and 15.8% from some other race. The ethnic makeup of the population is 29.8% Hispanic or Latino, with 70.2% belonging to a non-Hispanic or Latino background. English is the primary language of the city. Christianity is the predominant faith.
During its first century as a city, Chicago grew at a rate that ranked among the fastest growing in the world. Within the span of forty years, the city's population grew from slightly under 30,000 to over 1 million by 1890. By the close of the 19th century, Chicago was the fifth largest city in the world, eventually growing to become the third largest city in the world by 1933. Within fifty years of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, the population had tripled to over 3 million. The city's population peaked in the 1950 Census, although the city saw moderate growth in the 2000 and 2020 Censuses.
Population
In the 2010 United States census, there were 2,695,598 people and 1,194,337 households residing within the city limits of Chicago. More than half the population of the state of Illinois lives in the Chicago metropolitan area. The 2000 United States census had shown the population density of the city itself was 12,750.3 people per square mile (4,923.0/km2), making it one of the nation's most densely populated cities. There were 1,152,868 housing units at an average density of 5,075.8 per square mile (1,959.8/km2).
Of the 1,061,928 households in the 2000 census, 28.9% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 35.1% were married couples living together, 18.9% had a female householder with no husband present, and 40.4% were non-families. The median income for a household in the city was $38,625 in 2000, and the median income for a family was $46,748. Males had a median income of $35,907 versus $30,536 for females. Below the poverty line were 19.6% of the population and 16.6% of the families.
Racial and ethnic makeup 2020 census +Chicago, Illinois – Racial and ethnic compositionRace / Ethnicity (NH = Non-Hispanic)Pop 1970Pop 1980Pop 1990Pop 2000Pop 2010% 1970% 1980% 1990% 2000% 2010White alone (NH)2,207,7671,299,5571,056,048907,166854,717863,62265.57%43.25%37.94%31.32%31.71%31.45%Black or African American alone (NH)1,102,6201,187,9051,076,0991,053,739872,286787,55132.75%39.53%38.66%36.39%32.36%28.68%Native American or Alaska Native alone (NH)x6,072 Compilation of American Indian, Eskimo, Aleut categories5,3704,2534,0973,332x0.20%0.19%0.15%0.15%0.12%Asian alone (NH)36,26268,347 Compilation of Japanese, Chinese, Filipino, Korean, Asian Indian, and Vietnamese categories. Other Asian groups would be included in the Some Other Race category99,252124,437144,903189,8571.08%2.27%3.57%4.30%5.38%6.91%Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander alone (NH)x844 Compilation of Hawaiian, Guamanian, and Samoan categories. Other Pacific Islander groups would be included in the Some Other Race category1,046 Derived from extracting Pacific Islander population from Asian population972557529x0.03%0.04%0.03%0.02%0.02%Other race alone (NH)20,30820,284 Calculated as the difference between the total population and all other categories3,3634,3314,22711,5360.60%0.67%0.12%0.15%0.16%0.42%Mixed race or Multiracial (NH)xx Not an option in the 1980 Censusx Not an option in the 1990 Census47,47435,94970,443xxx1.64%1.33%2.56%Hispanic or Latino (any race)x422,063535,315753,644778,862819,518x14.05%19.23%26.02%28.89%29.84%Total3,366,9573,005,0722,783,7262,896,0162,695,5982,746,388100.00%100.00%100.00%100.00%100.00%100.00%
2024 United States Census Bureau American Community Survey one-year estimates
According to 2021 US Census Bureau American Community Survey one-year estimates, which is conducted annually for cities over 65,000 via sampling, the population of Chicago, Illinois was 36.1% White (32.9% Non-Hispanic White and 3.2% Hispanic White), 28.5% Black or African American, 6.9% Asian, 1.1% Native American and Alaskan Native, 0.1% Pacific Islander, 13.1% Some Other Race, and 14.2% from two or more races.
The White population is the largest racial category and includes the 10.9% of Hispanics who identify as White, with the remaining Hispanics identifying as Other Race (43.5%), Multiracial (40.1%), Black (1.5%), American Indian and Alaskan Native (3.7%), Asian (0.3%), and Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (0.1%). By ethnicity, 28.8% of the total population is Hispanic-Latino (of any race) and 71.2% is Non-Hispanic (of any race). If treated as a separate category, Hispanics are the largest minority group in Chicago.
In 2021, 20.4% of the population was foreign born. Of this, 51.8% came from Latin America, 16.8% from Europe, 24.8% from Asia and 6.6% from other parts of the world. As of 2018 - 2022, the Chicago metropolitan area had the fourth highest foreign-born population in the United States, surpassed only by New York, Los Angeles, and Miami. According to the Brookings Institution, Chicago is one of only four US metropolitan areas to be considered "major-continuous gateways" for immigration from the early 20th century until present-day. Along with New York, Boston, and San Francisco, the Chicago area's foreign-born proportion has exceeded the national average for every decade of the past century, suggesting its historic and continued desirability as a destination for new arrivals to the US. Indeed, from 1980 - 2000, the immigrant population of the Chicago PMSA nearly doubled (+91%) - primarily driven by immigration from Mexico. As early as the 1990s, however, observers noted that the suburbs began absorbing a larger amount of immigrants than the central city, which traditionally served as the funnel through which new arrivals entered. In that decade, the suburbs came to house a majority of the Chicago area's immigrants, moving from 47% to 56% of the total.
In 2016, the population of Hispanics exceeded that of Blacks to become Chicago's largest minority group with non-Hispanic Whites representing 32.6% of the population, Hispanics at 29.7% of the population, and Blacks at 29.3% of the population.Chicago Sun Times: "Census: Hispanics surpass blacks as Chicago's 2nd-largest racial group" by Mitchell Armentrout September 14, 2017 The large Hispanic population is rather recent, with the segregation between Hispanics and non-Hispanic Whites being low when compared to Blacks and non-Hispanic Whites. Over the years neighborhoods have seen gradual ethnic change with White ethnic neighborhoods like Brighton Park transitioning to Hispanic, while former Latino neighborhoods like West Town transition to majority non-Hispanic White.
The vast majority of Chicago Hispanics are of Mexican descent. As of the 2010 Census, 578,100 residents of the City of Chicago, had full or partial Mexican origins.
The Chicago metropolitan area has the third largest African American population, behind only New York City and Atlanta.
The main ethnic groups in Chicago include Irish, German, Italian, Mexican, Assyrian, Arab, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Bangladeshi, Jews, English, Bosnian, Croatian, Bulgarian, Czech, Greek, Black, Korean, Chinese, Indian, Filipino, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Montenegrin, Albanian, Pakistani, Polish, Hungarian, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Swedish, Ukrainian, Dutch, Belgian, Cuban, Vietnamese, and Puerto Rican.
Chicago has a large Irish American population, with many still residing on the South Side. The early years of Chicago coincided with the significant rise in Irish immigration in the 1830s and 1840s. Some Irish already lived in Chicago when it was incorporated as a city in 1837. In the next few years Irish numbers grew rapidly, particularly after the arrival of refugees from the Great Famine. By 1850 Irish immigrants accounted for about one-fifth of the city's population. Many of the city's politicians are descendants of this group, including previous mayor Richard M. Daley. The Irish were able to assert themselves in politics due to their large population but also the fact that they knew English and that – thanks to the geographic position of Ireland on the periphery of Europe – they did not have ancestral ethnic rivalries. As the old saying went, "A Lithuanian won't vote for a Pole, and a Pole won't vote for a Lithuanian. A German won't vote for either of them. But all three will vote for a turkey. – an Irishman." Only the WASPs hated the Irish, and the WASPs all lived on the North Shore." The Irish gained entry to Chicago's Fire and Police Departments and have kept family traditions of participation in these units. The Irish laid the foundations for many of the city's Roman Catholic churches, schools and hospitals. The Irish are still very active in the city's politics.
Germans have constituted a major portion of ethnic whites in Chicago since the beginning of the city's history. When the Great Plains opened up for settlement in the 1830s and 1840s, many German immigrants stopped in Chicago to earn additional money before moving West to claim a homestead. Those with skills in demand could—and often did—stay. From 1850, when Germans constituted one-sixth of Chicago's population, until the turn of the 20th century, people of German descent constituted the largest ethnic group in the city, followed by Irish, Poles, and Swedes. In 1900, 470,000 Chicagoans—one out of every four residents—had either been born in Germany or had a parent born there. Although their numbers dropped because of reduced emigration from Germany and because World War I had made it unpopular to acknowledge one's German heritage, 22 percent of Chicago's population still did so in 1920. One of the most distinct of these German groups were the Volga Germans, or ethnic Germans having lived along the Volga River in Russia. They largely clustered in Jefferson Park on the city's Northwest Side, coming to the area mostly between the years 1907–1920. By 1930 450 families of Volga German heritage were living in the Jefferson Park area, most of whom originated from Wiesenseite."German Russians in Chicagoland", Newsletter of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, March 1995 Chicago also hosts the headquarters of the largest Lutheran body in the United States, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
The city has one of the largest Assyrian diaspora populations, with the Assyrian community of Metropolitan Chicago numbering as many as 80,000. The Patriarchal see of the Assyrian Church of the East was based in Chicago for several decades up until 2015 when it was moved to Erbil. There is also a smaller Armenian diaspora in the Greater Chicago area, numbering around 10,000. There are seven Armenian Apostolic Churches in Chicagoland.
The city is the home to a large Romanian American community with more than 100,000.