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The Sochi Data Olympics: Russians in America (Part 1)

THURSDAY, FEB 06, 2014

As sports fans gear up for the Sochi Winter Olympics, Social Explorer bobsleds into data on the Russian population living in the US to add some demographic analysis to the figure skating and snowboarding events.

Russians Today:
The US has 2,091,793 residents with Russian ancestry, making up 0.7 percent of the nation’s population (according to the 2008-12 ACS).

This makes Russia the 18th most common ancestry in the US—just below West Indian, and just above African.

Additionally, there were 1,937 people who claimed “Soviet Union” as their ancestry.

Explore where Russian Americans live in the following 2008-12 ACS map:

While many associate Manhattan and Brooklyn with Russian immigrants, they cluster in other regions of the country too, such as in the Dakotas (click the map to zoom into different parts of the country).

Since the Moscow 1980 Games:

Russia last hosted the Olympics back in 1980 for the Moscow games.  Numerous political forces affected the ebbs and flows of Russian emigration to the US, Israel, and the rest of the world.  Social Explorer traced data on Russian ancestry from 1980 to the present to see how the host nation’s representation in the US has changed.

Russian_Americans_1980

Stay tuned for more Russian data events on our blog as the Sochi Olympics continue.

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