{"id":290759,"date":"2026-03-05T13:50:48","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T18:50:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/?post_type=short-read&p=290759"},"modified":"2026-03-06T16:51:36","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T21:51:36","slug":"7-facts-about-iranian-americans","status":"publish","type":"short-read","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2026\/03\/05\/7-facts-about-iranian-americans\/","title":{"rendered":"7 facts about Iranians in the U.S.\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"A
A shopkeeper watches news of U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran at his Iranian market on Persian Square in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles on Feb. 28, 2026. (Apu Gomes\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On Feb. 28, the United States and Israel attacked Iran<\/a> and killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as U.S. President Donald Trump called on Iranians to take over<\/a> the government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Iran has been led by conservative Shiite clerics since the Islamic Revolution in 1979<\/a>. In the decades since, several million Iranians have fled<\/a> and sought refuge in the U.S. and other countries<\/a>. As of 2024, there were 750,000 Iranian Americans in the U.S., making up 0.2% of the population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are seven facts about Iranians living in the U.S. Most of the data comes from a Pew Research Center analysis of the U.S. Census Bureau\u2019s 2024 American Community Survey<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this analysis, Iranian Americans are people born in Iran, people who said their ancestry or race is Iranian, and people with at least one parent who falls into one of these categories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About this research<\/strong><\/summary>\n

This Pew Research Center analysis explores key facts about Iranians in the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why did we do this? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pew Research Center does demographic studies, opinion surveys and other research to better understand U.S. immigrants. Iranians are among the immigrant groups we publish data on, and Iran has been in the news recently following U.S.-Israeli attacks<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Learn more about Pew Research Center<\/a> and our research on immigration<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How did we do this? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For this analysis, we primarily used data from the U.S. Census Bureau\u2019s American Community Survey<\/a> (ACS) provided by IPUMS USA<\/a> at the University of Minnesota. We rounded the population numbers to the nearest 5,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ACS and other official surveys do not directly identify Iranian Americans, as they do for specific Hispanic origin groups or race groups. So, we created an Iranian American category for this analysis made up of people in the ACS who meet any of the following criteria:<\/p>\n\n\n\n