page_title: Long Island
section_title: Demographics
hierarchical_section_title: Long Island / Demographics
caption_attribution_description: English: Front of the Harry E. Donnell House in Eatons Neck, NY. Now the Carr Bed and Breakfast (71 Locust Lane, Eatons Neck, New York, United States), the 1903 Mansion is on the National Register of Historic Places. Camera location40°&#160;56′&#160;02.25″&#160;N, 73°&#160;23′&#160;19.53″&#160;W&#160;View this and other nearby images on: OpenStreetMap - Google Earth
context_page_description: Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, in the northeastern United States. At New York Harbor it is approximately 0.35 miles from Manhattan Island and extends eastward over 100 miles into the Atlantic Ocean. The island comprises four counties; Kings and Queens counties and Nassau County share the western third of the island, while Suffolk County occupies the eastern two-thirds. More than half of New York City's residents live on Long Island, in Brooklyn and in Queens. However, many people in the New York metropolitan area colloquially use the term Long Island to refer exclusively to Nassau and Suffolk Counties, and conversely, employ the term the City to mean Manhattan alone.
  Broadly speaking, "Long Island" may refer both to the main island and the surrounding outer barrier islands. North of the island is Long Island Sound, across which lie Westchester County, New York, and the state of Connecticut. Across the Block Island Sound to the northeast is the state of Rhode Island. To the west, Long Island is separated from the Bronx and the island of Manhattan by the East River.
context_section_description: Long Island is one of the most densely populated regions in the United States. As of the United States 2010 Census, the total population of all four counties of Long Island was 7,568,304, which was 39% of the population of the State of New York. As of 2017, the proportion of New York City residents living on Long Island had risen to 58%, given the 5,007,353 residents living in Brooklyn or Queens. Furthermore, the proportion of New York State's population residing on Long Island has also been increasing, with Long Island's Census-estimated population increasing 4.0% since 2010, to 7,869,820 in 2017, representing 39.6% of New York State's Census-estimated 2017 population of 19,849,399 and with a population density of 5,617.3 inhabitants per square mile (2,168.9/km²) on Long Island. Long Island's population is greater than 37 of the 50 U.S. states.
  As of the 2010 census, the combined population of Nassau and Suffolk Counties was 2,832,882 people; Suffolk County's share being 1,493,350 and Nassau County's 1,339,532. Nassau County had a larger population for decades, but Suffolk County surpassed it in the 1990 census as growth and development continued to spread eastward. As Suffolk County has more than three times the land area of Nassau County, the latter still has a much higher population density and is growing faster in the 21st century, given its proximity to New York City. According to the U.S. Census Bureau's 2008 American Community Survey, Nassau and Suffolk Counties had the 10th and 26th highest median household incomes in the nation, respectively.
  Population figures from the U.S. Census Bureau Census 2010
  show that whites are the largest racial group in all four counties, and are in the majority in Nassau and Suffolk Counties. In 2002, The New York Times cited a study by the non-profit group ERASE Racism, which determined that Nassau and Suffolk Counties constitute the most racially segregated suburbs in the United States.
  In contrast, Queens is the most ethnically diverse county in the United States and the most diverse urban area in the world.
  According to a 2000 report on religion, which asked congregations to respond, Catholics are the largest religious group on Long Island, with non-affiliated in second place. Catholics make up 52% of the population of Nassau and Suffolk, versus 22% for the country as a whole, with Jews at 16% and 7%, respectively, versus 1.7% nationwide. Only a small percentage of Protestants responded, 7% and 8% respectively, for Nassau and Suffolk Counties. This is in contrast with 23% for the entire country on the same survey, and 50% on self-identification surveys.
  A growing population of nearly half a million Chinese Americans now live on Long Island. Rapidly expanding Chinatowns have developed in Brooklyn (布魯克林) and Queens, with Chinese immigrants also moving into Nassau County, as did earlier European immigrants, such as the Irish and Italians. The busy intersection of Main Street, Kissena Boulevard, and 41st Avenue defines the center of Downtown Flushing and the Flushing Chinatown, known as the "Chinese Times Square" or the "Chinese Manhattan". The segment of Main Street between Kissena Boulevard and Roosevelt Avenue, punctuated by the Long Island Rail Road trestle overpass, represents the cultural heart of the Flushing Chinatown. Housing over 30,000 individuals born in China alone, the largest by this metric outside Asia, Flushing has become home to the largest and one of the fastest-growing Chinatowns in the world as the heart of over 250,000 ethnic Chinese in Queens, representing the largest Chinese population of any U.S. municipality other than New York City in total.  Conversely, the Flushing Chinatown has also become the epicenter of organized prostitution in the United States, importing women from China, Korea, Thailand, and Eastern Europe to sustain the underground North American sex trade.
  More recently, a Little India community has emerged in Hicksville, Nassau County, spreading eastward from the more established Little India enclaves in Queens. Likewise, the Long Island Kore
caption: A mansion on Long Island's wealthy Gold Coast, which along with The Hamptons and Brooklyn's western waterfront (facing Manhattan) provides Long Island with some of the most expensive residential real estate in the Western Hemisphere.
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