Center for Puerto Rican Studies
Demographic Transitions: Settlement
and Distribution of the Puerto Rican
Population in the United States
Research Brief
By Carlos VargasRamos and Juan C.
García-Ellín
Issued July 2013
Centro RB2013-05
Figure 1: Puerto Rican population distribution by state in 2010
Carlos Vargas-Ramos
is Centro’s public policy
researcher and author of
three of its policy papers:
Settlement Patterns and
Residential Segregation
of Puerto Ricans in the
United States”, “The
State of Housing for
Hispanics in the United
States” and “Housing
Emergency and
Overcrowding: Latinos in
New York City”.
Juan Carlos García-Ellín
is a geographer currently
working at the Center for
Puerto Rican Studies.
He received his PhD
from the Department
of Geography at UCLA.
García-Ellín conducts
research in the areas of
migration and Latinos
in the United States. His
other areas of interest
include urban spaces,
race and ethnicity, and
geography of popular
music.
Source: US Census Bureau, 2010 Census, Table BCT11
The Puerto Rican population in the United States continues to grow in the new millennium. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, between 2000 and 2010, the number of
Puerto Ricans in the United States grew by more than 35 percent, from 3.4 million to
4.6 million. This rate of growth is nearly four times as fast as that of the population as a
whole (Table 1). By 2011, there were an estimated 4.8 million Puerto Ricans.
Table 1. Puerto Rican population in the United States: 1980-2010
Change
1980
1990
2000
Total number of Puerto Ricans 2,013,945 2,727,754 3,406,178
2010
4,623,716
Puerto Ricans
0.89% 1.10%
1.21%
1.50%
(as % of total U.S. population)
Total U.S. population
226,545,805 248,709,873 281,421,906 308,745,538
1980-90 1990-2000 2000-2010
35.4%
24.9%
35.7%
9.8%
13.2%
9.7%
Source: US Census Bureau
© Center for Puerto Rican Studies • Hunter College • CUNY • 695 Park Avenue • New York • NY 10065
212-772-5688 • centropr.hunter.cuny.edu
Distribution
The growth of the Puerto Rican population in the United States
has taken place in almost every state and every region of the
country. The majority of the Puerto Rican population was still
concentrated in the Northeast, where nearly 53 percent lived in
2010 (Table 2). However, this settlement concentration continues to decline. In 1990, more than 68 percent of Puerto Ricans
lived in the Northeast. By 2000, 61 percent did so. In contrast,
the South continues to increase its concentration of Puerto Ricans. In 2010, the South contained approximately 30 percent of
Puerto Ricans in the United States, twice the proportion it held
in 1990. In fact, the South tripled its Puerto Rican population
in those intervening twenty years, from 400,000 to 1.3 million.
Indeed, Puerto Rican population growth in the United States is
driven by its growth in the South: increasing 50 percent in every
decade since 1990.
This population and settlement dynamic
is seen clearly in the growth in two states
with the largest Puerto Rican populations: New York and Florida. New York
is still by far the state with most Puerto
Ricans in the United States, with more
than one million, or 23 percent of all
Puerto Ricans. Florida, however, follows closely behind with nearly 850,000,
or 18 percent of all Puerto Ricans. But
whereas New York’s Puerto Ricans grew
by 2 percent between 2000 and 2010,
Florida’s grew by 75 percent.
Table 2. Regional distribution of the Puerto
Rican population in the U.S. 1990-2010
Region
1990 Percent 2000 Percent
Northeast 1,871,981 68.6 2,074,574 60.9
South
405,941 14.9 759,305 22.3
Midwest
257,594 9.4
325,363 9.6
West
192,238 7.0
246,936 7.2
Total
2,727,754 3,406,178 2010 Percent
2,443,175 52.8
1,373,541 29.7
434,735 9.4
372,265 8.1
4,623,716
Percent Change
Region 1990-2000 2000-2010 1990-2010
Northeast
South
Midwest
West
29.86
52.09
9.99
8.06
30.3
50.4
9.0
10.3
30.13
51.03
9.34
9.50
Source: US Census Bureau
Figure 2: Puerto Rican population change by county in selected states
and Puerto Rico, 2000 to 2010
Migration
Estimation of Puerto Rican migration
between Puerto Rico and the United
States is calculated from data by the
Source: US Census Bureau, 2010 Census, Table PCT11
American Community Survey (ACS) of
the U.S. Census Bureau. The ACS includes a question about where the respondent was living one year ago. This
question makes it possible to identify how many people in Puerto Rico were living in the United States one year
before and how many Puerto Ricans in the United States were living in Puerto Rico one year before. For this
analysis, the results of the one-year samples for every year between 2006 and 2011 were combined.
The migration of Puerto Ricans to the United States has had a variety of different destinations. Nearly half of
Puerto Ricans who came to the United States from Puerto Rico went to the South (Table 3); 38 percent migrated
to the Northeast; 9 percent settled in the Midwest; and 3 percent in the West.
Centro Research Brief
2
November 2012
State and metropolitan area data on where Puerto Ricans relocated reflect the trends of the settlement data
above, with Florida locations consistently among the top destinations. At the state level, Florida and Texas are
two of the top destinations and are in the South. Northeastern states and metropolitan areas make up the rest of
the top-ranked destinations for Puerto Ricans.
Close to one-third (31%) of the Puerto Ricans in the United
States who had been living in Puerto Rico one year before, went
to Florida, making that state the first among the top five. Three
times as many migrants from the island settled in Florida as in
New York, the secondranked state, which received 10 percent of
migrants from the island; 9 percent relocated to Pennsylvania
from the island (Table 4). Massachusetts received just under
8 percent from Puerto Rico; and 6 percent went to Texas. In
terms of net migration, Florida gained over 35,000 Puerto Ricans from the island during the 2006 to 2011 years, while Pennsylvania gained 13,000 and Massachusetts and Texas gained
over 11,000 each. On the other hand, more Puerto Ricans left
New York in order to return to Puerto Rico than those who
migrated from the island into the state (Figure 3).
Table 3: Region of
destination of
migration from
Puerto Rico,
2006-2011
Table 4:
Top destinations for
Puerto Rican migrants
from Puerto Rico,
2006 to 2011
Region
State
Percent
Northeast 38.4
Midwest
9.2
South
49.1
West
3.4
Florida
New York Pennsylvania
Massachusetts
Texas
Source: ACS,
1-year samples,
2006-2011
100,000
100,000
From PR
To PR
60,000
60,000
40,000
40,000
From PR
To PR
20,000
20,000
0
0
a
i
an
v
l
y
-20,000
-20,000
s
-40,000
-40,000
-60,000
-60.000
a
rid
o
l
Florida
F
w
Ne
n
rk n
Yo Pe
New York
M
Pennsylvania
u
ch
a
ss
a
ts
t
se
Massachusetts
s
xa
Te
Texas
Source: ACS, 1-year samples, 2006-2011
3
Centro Research Brief
November 2012
se
er
J
New Jersey
t
icu
y
w
Ne
31.3
10.0
8.9
7.8
6.1
Source: ACS, 1-year
samples, 2006-2011
Figure 3: Largest migration flows to and from Puerto Rico, 2006-2011
80,000
80,000
Percent
t
ec
n
n
Co
Connecticut
Three of the top five metropolitan area destinations for Puerto Ricans
from the island are in Florida (Table 5). The Orlando metropolitan area
represents the metropolitan area that received the most relocating Puerto
Ricans, with 14 percent of those migrating from Puerto Rico settling
there. This was more than the close to 12 percent who went to the New
York-Northeastern New Jersey metropolitan area. It was also more than
three times the nearly 4 percent who went to Springfield, MA. The fourth
top destination was the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater area, to which
just over 3 percent of Puerto Ricans relocated. The Miami-Hialeah area
received close to the same number as the Philadelphia metropolitan area
with just under 3 percent of relocating Puerto Ricans from the island
each.
Table 5: Top metropolitan area
destinations for Puerto Ricans
migrating from Puerto Rico,
2006 to 2011
Metropolitan Area
Orlando, FL
New York, NY-Northeastern NJ
Springfield-Holyoke-Chicopee, MA
Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL
Miami-Hialeah, FL
Philadelphia, PA/NJ
Percent
14.2
11.6
4.0
3.3
2.6
2.6
Source: ACS, 1-year samples, 2006-2011
In summary, between 2006 and 2011, Puerto Ricans in the United States have experienced a general decline in
settlement concentration over the past few decades as they have dispersed from the Northeast to other regions.
Puerto Rican population growth in the United States is driven by its growth in the South, and the state and
metropolitan areas of Florida are driving the Puerto Rican population growth in the South.
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The Center for Puerto Rican Studies (Centro De Estudios Puertorriqueños) at Hunter College, City University of New York, is the only
university-based research institute in the United States solely devoted to the interdisciplinary study of the Puerto Rican experience in
diaspora. It is the oldest and largest Latino research and archival institution in the Northeast, and boasts the world’s only repository of
archival and library materials dedicated exclusively to the Puerto Rican migration. Since its inception in 1973, Centro also has developed
notable ties to academic, advocacy, and community-based constituencies, enabling it to document and respond to critical cultural and
social conditions within the stateside community. This report is part of a series designed to provide up-to-date information on demographic changes in our communities.
© Center for Puerto Rican Studies • Hunter College • CUNY • 695 Park Avenue • New York • NY 10065
212-772-5688 • centropr.hunter.cuny.edu