On this page
The map
The most-spoken language at home after English and Spanish
Each square is a state. Chinese comes out on top in 13 states, German in 7, and French and Vietnamese in 5 each. * = statistically tied with the runner-up (see below). Hover or tap a state for details; the full table is further down.
- Chinese
- German
- French
- Vietnamese
- Another language (named on the square)
What stands out
Chinese is the quiet giant
Chinese, which the Census counts together whether Mandarin or Cantonese, leads in 13 states, from California, with about 1.3 million speakers, to New York (600,000), Washington, Georgia and Pennsylvania.
German still holds the Plains and the Mountain West
German leads in 7 states, North Dakota and Wyoming outright and five more by a margin too small to call. Much of it traces back to the farm families who settled the Plains in the 19th century.
French, in two very different places
French leads in Louisiana, home of Cajun French, and across northern New England, near Quebec: Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. It also leads in the District of Columbia.
Vietnamese across the South Central states
Vietnamese leads in Texas, with about 248,000 speakers, and in Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska and Mississippi, communities that took root after the Vietnam War.
The one-state stories
- Florida: Haitian Creole, about 462,000 speakers.
- Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut: Portuguese, spoken by families with roots in Portugal (including the Azores) and Brazil.
- Michigan, Virginia and Tennessee: Arabic.
- Illinois: Polish. Wisconsin: Hmong. Nevada: Tagalog. Alabama: Korean, statistically tied with Chinese.
- Minnesota: the Census group that includes Somali and Amharic.
- Arizona and New Mexico: Navajo, the most-spoken Native language in the country.
- Ohio and Indiana: the group that includes Pennsylvania Dutch, the language of Amish and many Mennonite communities.
Where Spanish isn't second
In 3 states, Spanish is not the most common language after English at all: Alaska (Alaska Native languages), Hawaii (Ilocano, Samoan, Hawaiian and related languages) and Maine (French).
Too close to call
The Census Bureau publishes a margin of error for every estimate. In 12 states the top two languages after Spanish are closer than that margin, so we don't pretend to rank them. The map shows the language with the larger estimate and an asterisk:
| State | Tied languages |
|---|---|
| Alabama | Korean ≈ Chinese |
| Idaho | German ≈ Russian |
| Indiana | Pennsylvania Dutch, Yiddish & related ≈ German |
| Iowa | German ≈ Arabic |
| Kentucky | German ≈ Swahili & related |
| Maryland | Chinese ≈ Yoruba, Twi, Igbo & related |
| Mississippi | Vietnamese ≈ Chinese |
| Montana | German ≈ Native North American languages |
| Nebraska | Vietnamese ≈ Arabic |
| South Carolina | German ≈ French |
| Utah | Chinese ≈ Ilocano, Samoan, Hawaiian & related |
| West Virginia | Arabic ≈ German |
Every state
| State | Speak another language at home | Top language after Spanish | Speakers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama | 6.0% | Korean ≈ Chinese | 11,000 |
| Alaska | 15.1% | Native North American languages | 25,000 |
| Arizona | 25.7% | Navajo | 75,000 |
| Arkansas | 8.3% | Ilocano, Samoan, Hawaiian & related | 7,800 |
| California | 44.4% | Chinese | 1.3 million |
| Colorado | 16.2% | Chinese | 25,000 |
| Connecticut | 23.4% | Portuguese | 46,000 |
| Delaware | 15.1% | Chinese | 7,900 |
| District of Columbia | 19.1% | French | 10,000 |
| Florida | 30.6% | Haitian Creole | 462,000 |
| Georgia | 15.5% | Chinese | 61,000 |
| Hawaii | 24.7% | Ilocano, Samoan, Hawaiian & related | 117,000 |
| Idaho | 11.0% | German ≈ Russian | 4,800 |
| Illinois | 24.1% | Polish | 165,000 |
| Indiana | 10.3% | Pennsylvania Dutch, Yiddish & related ≈ German | 36,000 |
| Iowa | 9.1% | German ≈ Arabic | 10,000 |
| Kansas | 12.1% | Vietnamese | 12,000 |
| Kentucky | 6.8% | German ≈ Swahili & related | 12,000 |
| Louisiana | 8.5% | French | 60,000 |
| Maine | 6.0% | French | 31,000 |
| Maryland | 21.1% | Chinese ≈ Yoruba, Twi, Igbo & related | 71,000 |
| Massachusetts | 25.1% | Portuguese | 228,000 |
| Michigan | 10.4% | Arabic | 173,000 |
| Minnesota | 12.4% | Amharic, Somali & related | 98,000 |
| Mississippi | 4.3% | Vietnamese ≈ Chinese | 5,400 |
| Missouri | 6.7% | Chinese | 21,000 |
| Montana | 4.2% | German ≈ Native North American languages | 6,700 |
| Nebraska | 12.8% | Vietnamese ≈ Arabic | 7,700 |
| Nevada | 29.5% | Tagalog (Filipino) | 90,000 |
| New Hampshire | 7.9% | French | 15,000 |
| New Jersey | 33.1% | Chinese | 130,000 |
| New Mexico | 31.3% | Navajo | 58,000 |
| New York | 30.9% | Chinese | 600,000 |
| North Carolina | 13.5% | Chinese | 40,000 |
| North Dakota | 6.7% | German | 4,400 |
| Ohio | 8.0% | Pennsylvania Dutch, Yiddish & related | 63,000 |
| Oklahoma | 11.5% | Vietnamese | 16,000 |
| Oregon | 15.2% | Chinese | 30,000 |
| Pennsylvania | 12.4% | Chinese | 97,000 |
| Rhode Island | 23.1% | Portuguese | 31,000 |
| South Carolina | 8.4% | German ≈ French | 13,000 |
| South Dakota | 7.1% | Native North American languages | 9,500 |
| Tennessee | 8.6% | Arabic | 33,000 |
| Texas | 35.1% | Vietnamese | 248,000 |
| Utah | 15.9% | Chinese ≈ Ilocano, Samoan, Hawaiian & related | 17,000 |
| Vermont | 5.5% | French | 7,400 |
| Virginia | 17.4% | Arabic | 63,000 |
| Washington | 21.4% | Chinese | 142,000 |
| West Virginia | 2.5% | Arabic ≈ German | 2,400 |
| Wisconsin | 9.0% | Hmong | 40,000 |
| Wyoming | 6.9% | German | 1,800 |
Puerto Rico is not in the map: 95% of residents speak a language other than English at home, nearly all of them Spanish.
Using this for your church
A state-level language is a clue, not a plan. A language that leads a state may live mostly in one city, and your neighborhood may look nothing like the state average. Three steps that help:
- Look up your own county or ZIP code in the Census Bureau's table S1601, and see our ranking of the most multilingual metro areas.
- Ask your congregation, and the families who visited once and did not come back, which language they would choose for the sermon.
- Start with one or two languages you can support well, then add more as people ask.
About the data
These are U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey 2020–2024 5-year estimates for people five and older, the newest release that publishes detailed languages for every state. The Census Bureau reports some languages only in groups, such as “Amharic, Somali, or other Afro-Asiatic languages,” and we name the group rather than guess which language in it is larger. Catch-all groups (“other Indo-European,” “other Asian,” “other and unspecified”) are not counted as a language. A state is marked as a tie when the difference between the top two estimates is within their combined margin of error at the Census Bureau's 90% confidence level.
- U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2020–2024 5-year estimates, table B16001 (table-based summary file)
- U.S. Census Bureau, table S1601: Language Spoken at Home
Hear it before you decide
Our demo church is on air around the clock. Open it on your phone, pick a language and listen, then try ChurchTranslator.AI in your own service. The first four hours are free.