Alabama is home to 175,000 born outside the U.S. Here’s where they’re from

It feels right on this Thanksgiving week to celebrate some of the Alabamians who were born elsewhere, but found their way to the Yellowhammer state.

Alabama is home to about 175,000 people who were born outside the United States, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey from 2019, the most recent year for which the survey is available.

More from the Census: Alabama grew much faster than predicted, topped five million people at new Census count

2020 Census: Total population of every Alabama city, town and county

Huntsville rockets past Birmingham in 2020 Census, now Alabama’s largest city

That’s just over 3% of the state’s total population at that time, but many counties had significantly higher percentages.

[Can’t see the map? Click here.]

Franklin County, in rural northwest Alabama, has the highest percentage of foreign-born residents, with 9% of its total population being born outside the U.S.

Franklin is one of several north Alabama counties with a higher than average foreign-born population. Only six of Alabama’s 67 counties have more than 5% of their total populations made up by foreign-born residents, and four of those are in the northern part of the state.

Franklin, Marshall and DeKalb counties, each key agricultural producers, have more than 7% of their total populations made up of foreign-born residents. And in each one, the vast majority of foreign-born residents come from Latin America.

Madison County, home of fast-growing Huntsville and lots of high tech jobs, is a little different. It sits at 5.5% foreign born, but the majority of those residents were born in Asia.

Lee County, with Auburn University, and Shelby County, home to Birmingham suburbs, are the only counties in central Alabama that topped 5% foreign born, each with 5.6%.

Overall, nearly half of Alabama’s foreign born population is from Latin America, according to the Census Bureau. More than 84,000 of the state’s 175,000 foreign-born residents are from Latin America, compared to 32% from second-most Asia.

[Can’t see the chart? Click here.]

About 12% of Alabamians born outside the U.S. are from Europe, 5% are from Africa and 2.3% are from somewhere else in Northern America. The least represented region is Oceania, with less than 0.5%.

You can see the percentage of the total foreign-born population in each county that is from each region of the world by toggling the buttons in the map below.

[Can’t see the map? Click here.]

Do you have an idea for a data story about Alabama? Email Ramsey Archibald at rarchibald@al.com, and follow him on Twitter @RamseyArchibald. Read more Alabama data stories here.

If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.