U.S. Cities with the Largest Puerto Rican Population

This list contains the U.S. cities with the most Puerto Ricans. These cities have a lot of Puerto Rican residents, which truly allows for a real Puerto Rican community to be formed in the United States. It's a bit surprising to see Los Angeles at the bottom of this list.

What cities have the largest Puerto Rican population in the United States? No one should be all that surprised to New York City at the top of the list. Puerto Ricans have been flocking to New York for years and the vibrant Puerto Rican population encourages others to join them as well.

Source: Pew Hispanic Center (2011)

  • New York City
    Photo: Randy Lemoine / Flickr
    New York โ€“ often called New York City or the City of New York to distinguish it from the State of New York, of which it is a part โ€“ is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York metropolitan area, the premier gateway for legal immigration to the United States and one of the most populous urban agglomerations in the world. A global power city, New York exerts a significant impact upon commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and entertainment. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy and has been described as the cultural and financial capital of the world. Situated on one of the world's largest natural harbors, New York City consists of five boroughs, each of which is a county of New York State. The five boroughs โ€“ Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, the Bronx, and Staten Island โ€“ were consolidated into a single city in 1898. With a census-estimated 2014 population of 8,491,079 distributed over a land area of just 305 square miles, New York is the most densely populated major city in the United States.
    • Located In: New York, USA
    • Area (km sq.): 1213.4
  • Chicago
    Photo: Metaweb (FB) / Public domain
    177,000
    Chicago is the third most populous city in the United States, after New York City and Los Angeles. With 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in both the U.S. state of Illinois and the Midwestern United States. Its metropolitan area, sometimes called Chicagoland, is home to 9.9 million people and is the third-largest in the United States. Chicago is the seat of Cook County. Chicago was incorporated as a city in 1837, near a portage between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River watershed, and experienced rapid growth in the mid-nineteenth century. Today, the city is an international hub for finance, commerce, industry, technology, telecommunications, and transportation, with O'Hare International Airport being the busiest airport in the world; it also has the largest number of U.S. highways, and railroad freight entering its region. In 2012, Chicago was listed as an alpha global city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network, and ranks seventh in the world in the 2014 Global Cities Index.
    • Located In: Chicago metropolitan area, Illinois, USA
    • Area (km sq.): 606.1
  • 104,000
    Boston is the capital and largest city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. Boston also serves as county seat of Suffolk County. The city proper covers 48 square miles with an estimated population of 645,966 in 2014, making it the largest city in New England and the 24th largest city in the United States. The city is the anchor of a substantially larger metropolitan area called Greater Boston, home to 4.5 million people and the tenth-largest metropolitan area in the country. Greater Boston as a commuting region is home to 7.6 million people, making it the sixth-largest Combined Statistical Area in the United States. One of the oldest cities in the United States, Boston was founded on the Shawmut Peninsula in 1630 by Puritan settlers from England. It was the scene of several key events of the American Revolution, such as the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, the Battle of Bunker Hill, and the Siege of Boston. Upon American independence from Great Britain, the city continued to be an important port and manufacturing hub, as well as a center for education and culture.
    • Located In: Massachusetts, USA
    • Area (km sq.): 232.06
  • Miami
    Photo: flickr / CC0
    96,000
    Miami is a city located on the Atlantic coast in southeastern Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County. The 42nd most populated city proper in the United States, with a population of 419,777, it is the principal, central, and most populous city of the Miami metropolitan area, and the most populous metropolis in the Southeastern United States after Washington, D.C. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Miami's metro area is the eighth most populous and fourth-largest urban area in the United States, with a population of around 5.5 million. Miami is a major center and a leader in finance, commerce, culture, media, entertainment, the arts, and international trade. In 2012, Miami was classified as an Alpha-World City in the World Cities Study Groupโ€™s inventory. In 2010, Miami ranked seventh in the United States in terms of finance, commerce, culture, entertainment, fashion, education, and other sectors. It ranked thirty-third among global cities. In 2008, Forbes magazine ranked Miami "America's Cleanest City", for its year-round good air quality, vast green spaces, clean drinking water, clean streets and city-wide recycling programs.
    • Located In: Florida, USA
    • Area (km sq.): 143.15
  • Washington, D.C.
    Photo: user uploaded image
    55,000
    Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. The signing of the Residence Act on July 16, 1790, approved the creation of a capital district located along the Potomac River on the country's East Coast. The U.S. Constitution provided for a federal district under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Congress and the District is therefore not a part of any U.S. state. The states of Maryland and Virginia each donated land to form the federal district, which included the pre-existing settlements of Georgetown and Alexandria. Named in honor of George Washington, the City of Washington was founded in 1791 to serve as the new national capital. In 1846, Congress returned the land originally ceded by Virginia; in 1871, it created a single municipal government for the remaining portion of the District. Washington, D.C., had an estimated population of 658,893 in 2014, the 23rd-most populous city in the United States. Commuters from the surrounding Maryland and Virginia suburbs raise the city's population to more than one million during the workweek.
    • Located In: USA
    • Area (km sq.): 176.9
  • Orlando
    Photo: flickr / CC0
    248,000
    Orlando is a city in the U.S. state of Florida, and the county seat of Orange County. Located in Central Florida, it is the center of the Orlando metropolitan area, which had a population of 2,134,411 at the 2010 census, making it the 26th largest metropolitan area in the United States, the sixth largest metropolitan area in the Southern United States, and the third largest metropolitan area in the state of Florida. In 2010, Orlando had a city-proper population of 238,300, making it the 77th largest city in the United States, the fifth largest city in Florida, and the state's largest inland city. Orlando is nicknamed "The City Beautiful" and its symbol is the fountain at Lake Eola. Orlando is also known as "The Theme Park Capital of the World" and its tourist attractions draw more than 57 million tourists a year, including 4.1 million international guests. The Orlando International Airport is the thirteenth busiest airport in the United States and the 29th busiest in the world. Buddy Dyer is Orlando's mayor.
    • Located In: Florida, USA
    • Area (km sq.): 286.7