Where do Singaporeans in the US live?


So, I've been studying how to use ArcGIS and here was the fun results of one project - mapping out where all the 26754 people who claim Singapore as their birthplace live in America. Map was created using ArcGIS and county-level data from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey. (There's also finer census tract-level data, but it was a bit problematic to use for a bunch of reasons that I won't get into here.)




While "Singapore-born" includes a number of people who were born in Singapore as the children of American expats who now live in the US, as well as a number of people who gave up their citizenship, I suspect that this data is a relatively accurate proxy for where Singaporeans live in the U.S.

As the graph shows, not unsurprisingly, Singaporeans are concentrated on the East and West coasts, My analysis of the data show over 10,000 living within the Boston-New York-Philadelphia-Washington DC corridor, about 5000 living within 250 miles of L.A., and just under 5000 living within 250 miles of the Bay Area. The next highest concentrations are in Texas and then in Chicago/Ann Arbor.

(I've also done the methodology with the Malaysia-born, to show that this methodology works.)

So there you go - a good way of figuring out where there's a built-in market for someone who wants to start a Singaporean restaurant. Among other uses of the data, of course.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Good work!
Unknown said…
I would also want to live in New York-Washington belt for culture, and in the Bay area for culture, leisure and or the Pacific North West for leisure!
kleon said…
haha I'm the only Singaporean currently in Stillwater, OK studying in Oklahoma State University =)
Rchuask said…
I am a Singaporean live in Atlanta and meet a couple of people from Singapore lately too.
Anonymous said…
@Jerry Tay... Eskimo Joes!
Anonymous said…
It would be even more useful & revealing if the data shows the distribution of Student Visa holders vs Green Card Holders, as the former are only Temporarily residing in the US & are likely to be distributed in close proximity to the Universities & Colleges
You Bin said…
Amazing job! Yay, Bay Area is the best! Wish I could move back again!
Anonymous said…
Jerry Tay said...
" would also want to live in...the Pacific North West for leisure!"
Het Jerry, I do like Seattle when I was there for a week for Business some 10 yrs ago, but living there in the long term may be different -- Washington State has a HIGH, if not HIGHEST SUicide Rate
Anonymous said…
now i know where to study or work where my country folks are

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