Pakistani Americans are citizens of the United States who have full or partial ancestry from Pakistan, or more simply, Pakistanis in America. They can be from different ethnic groups in Pakistan like Punjabi or Baloch. The term may also refer to people who also hold a dual Pakistani and U.S. citizenship. Educational attainment level and household income are much higher in the Pakistani-American diaspora compared to the U.S. population at large. In 2019, there were an estimated 554,202 self-identified Pakistani Americans, representing about 0.187% of the U.S. population, and about 2.50% of Asian Americans; more specifically, around 8% of South Asian Americans.
The New York City Metropolitan Area, including New York City, Central New Jersey, as well as Long Island in New York, is home to the largest Pakistani American population.
Aerial view of exurban Monroe Township, Middlesex County, New Jersey housing tracts in 2010. Since then, significant new housing construction is rendering an increasingly affluent and suburban environment to Monroe Township, while maintaining the proximity to New York City sought by the Pakistani diaspora in this township with the fastest-growing Pakistani population in the Western Hemisphere.
Pakistani-born population spread in the United States, 2000
Pakistani restaurant in Newington, Virginia
Asian Americans are Americans of Asian ancestry. Although this term had historically been used for all the indigenous peoples of the continent of Asia, the usage of the term "Asian" by the United States Census Bureau only includes people with origins or ancestry from the Far East, Southeast Asia, and the Indian subcontinent and excludes people with ethnic origins in certain parts of Asia, including West Asia who are now categorized as Middle Eastern Americans. Furthermore, Central Asians are not mentioned in any census racial category. The "Asian" census category includes people who indicate their race(s) on the census as "Asian" or reported entries such as "Chinese, Indian, Bangladeshi, Filipino, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Korean, Japanese, Pakistani, Malaysian, and Other Asian". In 2020, Americans who identified as Asian alone (19,886,049) or in combination with other races (4,114,949) made up 7.2% of the U.S. population.
Five images of the Filipino settlement at Saint Malo, Louisiana
Jerry Yang, billionaire co-founder of the search engine Yahoo!. He is currently the founding partner of the venture fund AME Cloud Ventures
Steve Chen (middle), co-founder of YouTube.
Jensen Huang, billionaire, founder and CEO of Nvidia, the largest AI conglomerate and the third largest company in the world as of March 2024