Geographic Distribution
Ethnic Germans form an important minority group in several countries in central and eastern Europe—(Poland, Hungary, Romania, Russia) as well as in Namibia (German Namibian), Brazil (German-Brazilian) (approx. 3% of the population), Argentina (German-Argentine) (~ 7,5% of the population) and Chile (German-Chilean) (approx. 3,5% of the population).
Some groups may be classified as Ethnic Germans despite no longer having German as their mother tongue or belonging to a distinct German culture. Until the 1990s, two million Ethnic Germans lived throughout the former Soviet Union, particularly in Russia and Kazakhstan.
In the United States 1990 census, 57 million people were fully or partly of German ancestry, forming the largest single ethnic group in the country. States with the highest percentage of Americans of German descent are in the northern Midwest (especially Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan) and the Mid-Atlantic state, Pennsylvania. But Germanic immigrant enclaves existed in many other states (e.g., the German Texans and the Denver, Colorado area) and to a lesser extent, the Pacific Northwest (i.e. Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington state).
Notable Ethnic German minorities also exist in other Anglosphere countries such as Canada (approx. 10% of the population) and Australia (approx. 4% of the population). As in the United States, most people of German descent in Canada and Australia have almost completely assimilated, culturally and linguistically, into the English-speaking mainstream.
Distribution of German citizens and people claiming German ancestry (important: those figures are not truly correct and could be only higher, because of wrongly formulated questions in censuses in various countries (for example in Poland) and other different factors, f.e. related to participant in a census):
| Country | German ancestry | German citizens | Comments | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Germany | 66,420,000 | 75,000,000 | see Demographics of Germany | |
| United States | 50,000,000 | see German American | ||
| Brazil | 5,000,000 | see German Brazilian | ||
| Canada | 3,200,000 | see Canadians of German ethnicity | ||
| Argentina | 3,100,000 | 50,000 | see German Argentine | |
| South Africa | 1,200,000 | see Afrikaner. Although studies show that between 30–40% of Afrikaners have German ancestry, due to intermarriage this figure is likely to be much higher. | ||
| CIS | 1,000,000 | 600,000 | see Germans in Russia, Germans of Kazakhstan, Volga Germans, Caucasus Germans | |
| France | 1,000,000 | predominant ethnic group of Alsace and Moselle; 970,000 with German dialects as mother tongue | ||
| Australia | 812,000 | incl. 106,524 German-born. See German Australian | ||
| Chile | 500,000 - 600,000 | see German-Chilean | ||
| Italy | 500,000 | |||
| Netherlands | 179,000 | |||
| United Kingdom | 262,000 | 92,000 | see German migration to the United Kingdom | |
| Spain | 255,000 | German immigrants | ||
| Switzerland | 266,000 | see German immigration to Switzerland | ||
| Poland | 153,000 | German minority in Poland. The minority is concentrated mainly in Silesia (particularly in Opole Voivodeship). | ||
| Peru | 180,000 | see German Peruvian | ||
| Hungary | 120,344 | see Germans of Hungary | ||
| Austria | 124,710 | |||
| Israel | 100,000 | |||
| Venezuela | 70,000 | see German Venezuelan | ||
| Romania | 60,000 | see Germans of Romania | ||
| Uruguay | 46,000 | 6,000 | ||
| Czech Republic | 40,000 | see Germans in the Czech Republic | ||
| Bolivia | 40,000 | German speaking Mennonites. See Ethnic Germans in Bolivia | ||
| Belgium | 38,366 | excludes German-speaking ethnic Belgians | ||
| Norway | 37,000 | |||
| Ecuador | 33,000 | |||
| Namibia | 30,000 | German Namibian | ||
| Dominican Republic | 25,000 | |||
| Denmark | 15,000–20,000 | see North Schleswig Germans | ||
| Greece | 15,498 | |||
| Ireland | 11,797 | |||
| Slovakia | 5000–10,000 | |||
| Philippines | 6,400 | see German settlement in the Philippines | ||
| Serbia | 3,900 | see Germans of Serbia | ||
| Croatia | 2,900 | see Germans of Croatia | ||
| Turkmenistan | 2,700 | |||
| Tajikistan | 2,700 | |||
| Jamaica | 160 | Germans in Jamaica |
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