New York City's Chinese-born immigrant population has become the largest foreign-born group for the first time, surpassing Dominicans, the previous largest group, according to a report released by the New York City Department of City Planning.

The city's Chinese-born immigrant population was 397,000 in 2023, a 5 percent increase from 2013, according to the 2026 edition of The Newest New Yorkers report, its first update of the report since 2013.

The community now makes up 12.8 percent of the city's 3.1 million immigrant population. The figure includes people who moved from the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong and other places, the report said.

The other top foreign-born groups in New York are Dominican, Guyanese, Mexican and Jamaican.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said in a statement: "From the neighborhoods they have built to the small businesses that have opened, from the languages they speak to the communities they sustain, immigrants make New York the city that it is. This report shines a light on how our city is changing and growing and reminds us that our greatest strength has always been the people who come here."

Kristin, a 27-year-old living in Brooklyn, New York, is originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota and says she "loves" the city's diversity.

"New York is a melting pot of cultures," she told China Daily. "For me, that's what makes it a great place to live — seeing all of these different cultures in one place is amazing! You get to meet different people from all backgrounds, explore different food and stuff. I love it."

New York had 8.58 million residents as of July 2025, according to data from the US Census Bureau released in March.

Overall, foreign-born New Yorkers now make up more than one-third of the city's population and 43 percent of its workforce, while two-thirds of all city residents are first or second-generation New Yorkers, the report said.

Since 1990, Dominicans had been New York's largest foreign-born group. But since 2013, the number of Dominicans calling the Big Apple home has declined 6 percent to 390,000.

The report also found that Chinese New Yorkers have a median household income of $60,000, compared to $36,000 for Dominicans in the city.

Nationwide trend

The shift in the population in the largest US city is being repeated nationwide to some extent, according to Professor Rogelio Saenz.

Saenz, a sociologist and demographer in the Department of Demography at the University of Texas at San Antonio, told China Daily that "there have been significant shifts in the racial and ethnic composition of the US population since 1980 ... The face of immigration changed significantly from European to Asian and Latin American and Caribbean".

"Over the decades from the mid-1960s to 2010, immigration accounted for a significant segment of the population growth of Asians and Latinos," said Saenz, who is also a senior fellow at the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire.

The Asian population — including both Asian Americans born in the US and Asians born overseas who immigrated to the US — is growing nationwide, May 2025 data from the Pew Research Center showed.

At 5.5 million people, Chinese Americans are the largest group with Asian origins, making up 22 percent of Asians in the US, Pew found.

belindarobinson@chinadailyusa.com