Seattle's population

Seattle's population historically has been predominantly white.[32] The 2010 census showed that Seattle was one of the whitest big cities in the country, although its proportion of white residents has been gradually declining.[102] In 1960, whites comprised 91.6% of the city's population,[32] while in 2010 they comprised 69.5%.[101][103] According to the 2006–2008 American Community Survey, approximately 78.9% of residents over the age of five spoke only English at home. Those who spoke Asian languages other than Indo-European languages made up 10.2% of the population, Spanish was spoken by 4.5% of the population, speakers of other Indo-European languages made up 3.9%, and speakers of other languages made up 2.5%.

Seattle's foreign-born population grew 40% between the 1990 and 2000 censuses.[104] The Chinese population in the Seattle area has origins in mainland China, Hong Kong, Southeast Asia, and Taiwan. The earliest Chinese-Americans that came in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were almost entirely from Guangdong Province. The Seattle area is also home to a large Vietnamese population of more than 55,000 residents,[105] as well as over 30,000 Somali immigrants.[106] The Seattle-Tacoma area is also home to one of the largest Cambodian communities in the United States.