Rhode Island Ancestry and Population Demographic Data

On this page, you'll find details on the largest ethnic ancestries in Rhode Island, with links to ancestry pages to research more data.

Below, we'll show you the full list of different ancestries reported in Rhode Island for the past 6 years. These start from the latest figures from the Census Bureau for , back to -5.

To make the surfacing of this data easier, we've listed it in descending order based on the most recent year of data available, which means that past years may not be in the correct descending order.

All ancestry labels below are the grouping terms used by the U.S. Census Bureau and are not labels that Name Census has provided.

Rhode Island Ancestry Data

Ancestry 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
White 854,859 854,026 854,801 854,502 850,597 835,608
Hispanic or Latino 143,788 148,375 153,910 158,858 163,226 168,007
Italian 84,693 82,745 78,575 74,014 70,913 70,321
African American 68,243 68,886 68,346 69,254 71,561 69,196
Some Other Race 61,085 61,218 59,967 58,136 57,807 59,003
Irish 57,892 56,366 55,010 52,924 50,084 47,921
Portuguese 48,748 47,699 44,648 43,446 42,990 40,489
Dominican 43,827 47,278 49,647 52,340 52,437 52,691
Puerto Rican 37,189 37,601 38,860 42,033 44,552 44,611
Asian 34,213 34,598 35,556 35,663 35,958 36,536
French 30,848 28,648 28,090 26,014 24,772 22,825
English 28,068 25,954 24,972 24,726 24,219 24,337
French Canadian 26,786 27,172 26,889 25,924 25,394 24,751
Guatemalan 24,636 23,408 23,292 22,196 21,904 24,118
Subsaharan African 23,809 23,858 24,471 25,113 25,152 25,333
American 23,186 23,186 23,000 24,206 25,305 24,941
Cape Verdean 14,606 14,550 15,022 14,759 14,191 12,585
Polish 11,515 11,710 10,932 10,248 9,579 9,019
German 11,321 10,570 10,008 9,225 8,863 8,263
Mexican 10,432 10,654 10,623 11,123 11,534 10,956
Colombian 8,525 8,766 9,627 9,391 9,088 9,796
Chinese 8,375 8,339 8,783 8,762 8,332 7,708
Cambodian 5,740 5,024 5,616 5,699 5,799 5,527
West Indian (except Hispanic groups) 5,629 5,908 6,535 6,410 6,449 6,957
Asian Indian 5,362 5,971 6,826 7,410 8,151 9,000
Total Arab 5,251 5,308 4,670 4,716 5,118 4,996
Scottish 4,476 4,006 3,773 3,739 3,459 3,207
Russian 3,956 3,713 3,327 3,143 2,637 2,825
European 3,839 4,012 4,473 5,264 5,694 6,096
African 3,747 3,458 3,435 4,084 4,082 4,051
American Indian 3,737 3,542 3,584 3,650 3,424 2,534
Salvadoran 3,561 4,159 4,502 4,218 4,288 4,090
Swedish 3,387 3,477 3,280 3,394 2,999 2,616
Haitian 3,246 3,620 3,876 4,015 3,720 4,535
All other Hispanic or Latino 3,163 3,350 2,790 2,774 3,707 6,356
Bolivian 3,039 2,868 3,594 3,314 3,158 2,773
Greek 3,025 2,938 2,929 2,752 2,950 2,847
Filipino 2,980 2,957 2,662 2,639 2,526 3,102
Armenian 2,809 2,528 2,247 2,391 2,134 1,894
Laotian 2,696 2,661 2,451 2,207 1,772 2,147
Liberian 2,570 2,899 2,739 2,369 2,409 2,900
Canadian 2,083 1,714 1,527 1,509 1,684 1,672
British 1,899 1,777 1,956 1,939 2,058 1,947
Lebanese 1,790 1,911 1,506 1,512 1,482 1,627
Scotch-Irish 1,775 1,726 1,790 1,628 1,445 1,361
Korean 1,597 1,725 1,716 1,782 1,630 1,699
Cuban 1,593 1,931 2,073 1,953 2,168 2,099
Peruvian 1,528 1,462 1,439 1,417 1,215 1,139
Eastern European 1,470 1,280 1,236 1,409 1,535 2,375
Brazilian 1,450 1,067 1,075 1,191 1,117 1,245
Jamaican 1,323 1,238 1,540 1,386 1,678 1,328
Nigerian 1,297 1,629 2,022 2,459 2,851 4,059
Dutch 1,202 1,122 954 791 534 587
Lithuanian 1,194 992 1,071 1,006 969 705
Spaniard 1,144 1,285 1,403 1,430 1,513 1,963
Honduran 1,133 1,031 1,100 1,511 1,732 963
Syrian 1,080 973 777 830 890 744
Ukrainian 1,068 858 991 983 1,013 1,135
Norwegian 1,061 922 939 877 888 874
Arab 949 1,098 971 753 701 668
Ecuadorian 916 1,203 1,181 1,189 1,304 1,552
Japanese 821 975 872 822 925 961
Two or more Asian 746 741 736 861 966 1,023
Hmong 652 518 502 627 944 827
Venezuelan 627 579 587 567 573 622
Northern European 621 589 561 484 370 269
Hungarian 556 584 627 519 485 590
Pakistani 537 635 762 775 653 679
Argentinean 518 555 659 668 757 647
Romanian 513 493 485 585 613 669
Egyptian 479 509 426 312 556 660
Czech 478 596 360 351 285 297
Nepalese 456 499 464 326 253 70
Other Subsaharan African 450 422 392 556 801 777
Austrian 447 447 464 375 311 211
Turkish 438 399 555 449 412 421
Welsh 428 431 433 454 396 384
Spanish 416 621 773 908 913 1,037
Ghanaian 405 337 308 251 145 114
Taiwanese 390 355 427 406 557 632
Senegalese 390 148 122 102 96 253
Burmese 382 469 318 139 343 305
Thai 380 381 422 433 429 412
Nicaraguan 374 309 444 525 582 670
Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander 373 575 759 863 810 790
Other Arab 367 409 346 602 737 751
Finnish 365 346 302 268 287 212
Panamanian 349 417 436 541 879 921
West Indian 348 348 342 326 292 269
Trinidadian and Tobagonian 340 167 208 210 178 165
Scandinavian 335 258 220 473 542 548
Bangladeshi 329 268 229 34 87 220
Swiss 309 315 294 337 268 286
Other Asian, not specified 303 463 421 426 590 508
Slovak 269 265 300 252 248 239
Danish 251 227 292 343 369 317
Iranian 247 290 334 306 284 212
Yugoslavian 245 146 147 128 138 141
Costa Rican 233 242 192 143 179 290
Jordanian 210 58 240 311 271 228
Uruguayan 202 88 85 62 129 86
Albanian 202 214 362 509 575 501
Croatian 200 215 134 94 144 163
Moroccan 197 153 155 204 181 178
Chilean 196 346 373 400 461 496
Belgian 191 193 136 104 144 129
Bulgarian 171 191 184 149 248 199
Iraqi 167 171 230 164 258 91
Kenyan 160 176 201 267 294 119
Latvian 148 108 47 38 18 21
Other Central American 133 183 180 138 124 103
British West Indian 119 128 210 249 347 348
Celtic 109 80 73 69 88 39
South African 99 50 37 12 16 115
Barbadian 95 174 187 121 115 208
Afghan 94 30 0 0 0 0
Israeli 93 117 91 89 85 96
Guyanese 87 146 96 183 192 271
Australian 85 109 81 73 135 143
Slavic 85 87 90 46 56 35
Belizean 77 137 87 45 61 60
Ethiopian 76 162 160 152 152 195
Bhutanese 75 165 95 96 98 61
Czechoslovakian 71 73 98 112 97 104
Indonesian 62 46 27 112 100 138
Basque 62 31 35 37 36 161
Mongolian 61 16 9 9 0 0
Cajun 61 48 51 45 64 46
Bermudan 56 71 45 26 24 8
Malaysian 42 49 29 25 13 18
Icelander 42 66 36 79 72 53
Soviet Union 42 31 40 41 0 0
Spanish American 31 39 50 16 28 26
Pennsylvania German 28 17 38 24 56 51
Other Asian, specified 26 25 28 0 0 0
Maltese 25 24 16 19 32 11
Sri Lankan 24 49 40 37 42 64
Estonian 21 31 45 26 23 20
New Zealander 21 22 15 16 0 0
Luxembourger 20 19 3 3 5 0
Bahamian 19 19 5 0 0 0
Slovene 17 21 21 8 7 5
Paraguayan 13 0 0 0 0 0
Palestinian 12 26 19 28 42 49
Serbian 12 9 0 0 0 60
Alaska Native tribes 10 12 17 7 11 13
Other South American 10 0 0 1 1 2
Zimbabwean 9 8 8 6 5 6
German Russian 7 0 0 0 0 0
United States Virgin Islander 6 6 35 32 34 23

Data Source(s)

All of the data on this page is sourced from the latest American Community Survey (ACS) 5-year estimates, from the United States Census Bureau. The latest year for the ACS is currently .

Link To or Reference This Page

We spent a lot of time downloading, cleaning, merging, and formatting the data that is shown on the site.

If you found the data or information on this page useful in your research, please use the tool below to properly cite or reference Name Census as the source. We appreciate your support!

  • "Rhode Island Ancestry and Population Demographic Data". NameCensus.com. Accessed on March 30, 2023. https://namecensus.com/ancestry/state/rhode-island/.

  • "Rhode Island Ancestry and Population Demographic Data". NameCensus.com, https://namecensus.com/ancestry/state/rhode-island/. Accessed 30 March, 2023

  • Rhode Island Ancestry and Population Demographic Data. NameCensus.com. Retrieved from https://namecensus.com/ancestry/state/rhode-island/.