NJ has the most Italian town in the U.S. and it’s not what you think (2024)

FAQs

NJ has the most Italian town in the U.S. and it’s not what you think? ›

Toms River is home to the largest Italian-American population in New Jersey, 29,062 to be specific. Strictly by population, it's the most Italian city. About 29,000 people out of the total population of 91,000 in Toms River!

Fairfield. Fairfield is a far smaller town than Toms River. Still, its importance lies in the fact that it has the largest percentage of Italian-American residents in New Jersey, 51% of the total population, to be exact. It's safe to say that this is the best place in the Garden State to experience Italian culture.

Fairfield – 50.3% (highest percentage for a town in the United States) Hammonton – 45.9% (second highest percentage for a town in the United States) Dover Beaches South – 42.8% East Hanover – 41.3%

After Italian unification in 1861, Italians began to arrive in New Jersey in large numbers. Approximately ¾ of these immigrants came from the Mezzogiorno (a pseudo-region of Italy stretching down the Italian peninsula south of Rome) and also from Sicily.

New York City has the largest population of Italian Americans in the United States as well as North America, many of whom inhabit ethnic enclaves in Brooklyn, the Bronx, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island.

Little Italy is a neighborhood in Downtown Paterson, New Jersey.

It's in New Jersey. Fairfield, New Jersey is the most Italian place in the United States according to the United States Census Bureau, whose latest numbers came out earlier this month. Just more than half of residents —50.3 percent — of its 7,475 residents claim Italian ancestry.

Fairleigh Dickinson University, Madison, NJ, May 24, 2023 – Seventeen percent of New Jersey residents claim Italian ancestry, but in an era where immigrants from around the world are making the state more diverse, are Italian Americans still a distinct group?

Does New Jersey have the strongest population of Italians Americans living there? No, New Jersey is the third state as a percentage after Rhode Island and Connecticut; second as total population after New York.

Between 1820 and 1870, fewer than 25,000 Italian immigrants came to the U.S., mostly from northern Italy. These early arrivals settled in communities all across the country, from the farm towns of New Jersey and the vineyards of California to the ports of San Francisco and New Orleans.

How much of NJ is Italian? ›

Italians dominate in the state that has become well-known for the TV series “The Sopranos,” which chronicled the life and times of a fictional Italian mobster from New Jersey and his families, both real and in the Mafia. The Census estimates roughly 17 percent of New Jerseyans, or 1.5 million, are of Italian heritage.

New York has the largest total population of Italian Americans at 2,330,336, but a lower percentage of 11.9%.

Between 1900 and 1914, almost two million Italians emigrated to America, most arriving in New York. By 1930 NYC was home to over a million Italian Americans – a whopping 17 percent of the city's population. Most Italian immigrants came from southern Italy and were contadini (landless farmers) fleeing severe poverty.

Of the towns with over 10,000 residents reporting Italian ancestry, Toms River in Ocean County has the highest total number of Italian-Americans. By percent, Washington Township in Gloucester County ranks highest, with more than a third of its residents claiming Italian heritage.

The Census estimates roughly 17 percent of New Jerseyans, or 1.5 million, are of Italian heritage. Germans, who number more than 1 million, place third, and are the only other ancestry claimed by more than 1 in 10 state residents.

The colony gradually expanded to Quarry Street and Drift Street. It grew to become Newark's Little Italy in the First Ward. The Italians who settled on Boyden Street, established a second colony on RIVER STREET.