page_title: Demographics of California
section_title: European Americans
hierarchical_section_title: Demographics of California / Racial/Ethnic makeup / European Americans
caption_attribution_description: English: A busy day on Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica, California; the south end is the entrance to Frank Gehry's Santa Monica Place.
context_page_description: California is the most populated U.S. state, with an estimated population of 39.512 million as of July 1, 2019. It has people from a wide variety of ethnic, racial, national, and religious backgrounds.
context_section_description: California has the largest population of European Americans of any state.  For example, in 2000 California had more Bulgarian Americans, Romanian Americans and Hungarian Americans than any other U.S. state. Los Angeles and San Francisco have large Russian American and Ukrainian American populations; and a long history of German, Irish, Italian, English and Polish communities established by immigrants in the late 19th century. There are also many English Americans, Irish Americans, and French Americans whose ancestors were the original 49ers, also known as the California Gold Rush immigrants.
  California has over one million residents each with Spanish or Portuguese ancestry, with communities along coastal parts of the state such as San Diego, Long Beach, Camarillo, Santa Clara Valley (including Cupertino, Gilroy and San Jose), Salinas Valley, Santa Maria Valley, and San Joaquin Valley. A small wave of Danish, Dutch and Swedish immigrants founded towns like Lathrop near Stockton, Artesia near Los Angeles, Kingsburg south of Fresno, Solvang north of Santa Barbara in the late 1800s and the private community of Sveadal located 15 miles south of San Jose and populated entirely by members of the Swedish American Patriotic League. Small colonies of early 19th century Russian settlement under the Russian American Company are in Fort Ross, Calistoga and the Russian River Valley in Sonoma and Napa counties. California also has the third largest Greek American population in the United States, behind New York and Massachusetts. Small Amish/Mennonite colonies exist in an area bordered by the towns Oakdale, Riverbank and Ripon near Modesto and in Reedley, Sanger and Orange Cove near Fresno in the San Joaquin Valley; and in the outer Salinas Valley.
  The most important Italian community in California is in North Beach District at San Francisco. The 60% of californian Italo-Americans are from northern Italy. Others numerous groups are from Tuscany and Sicily. Many Italians also live in San Diego, with Little Italy having San Diego’s largest Italian population.
caption: Pedestrians walking on the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica.
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