Ethnic/cultural communities with their diasporas globally most well-represented in Toronto?

[wild goose chase]

I have heard of people talk about particular cities who claim to have the most of an ethnic/cultural group's representation abroad, in terms of either demographics or cultural influence by some measure outside its homeland.

Examples include "Chicago is the city with the most Polish people outside Poland" (though I hear this may no longer be true) or "Gimli, Manitoba has the most Icelandic people outside Iceland".

Other times, the claim may not be the largest number of people, but might relate to cultural representation outside the homeland, such as the largest festival of a kind (eg. Kitchener-Waterloo's claim of the largest Oktoberfest celebration outside Germany) or the cities that claim to have the largest/oldest Chinatown outside Asia.

Does Toronto have any claims to fame like this?

 

[Skeezix]

Well, UNESCO did declare us to be the most multicultural city in the world.

Seriously, though, Toronto's Tibetan community is the largest in North America.

And, according to Wikipedia:

In 2004, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) reported that Toronto had the second-largest proportion of foreign-born residents of major world cities, behind only Miami, Florida. While Miami's foreign-born population is dominated by those of Cuban and Latin American descent, Toronto's foreign-born population is not dominated by any particular ethnic or geographical group.

 

[kbdid]

We used to have the largest population of Maltese outside of Malta in the Junction but most have headed to Mississauga

 

[Memph]

I think our Portuguese, Sri Lankan Tamil and Punjabi/Sikh populations are pretty substantial. For Punjabis and Sikhs I think Toronto (CMA) is #1 outside India/Pakistan although Vancouver is quite close. As for Sri Lankan Tamils, Toronto also seems to be #1 outside Sri Lanka and seems to rank quite high for Sri Lankans in general and Tamils in general.

It does seem like Toronto has more Tibetans than anywhere else outside the general area they are native to, although they're still a relatively small ethnic community compared to others in Toronto.

Portuguese: second to only Paris (outside Portugal/Brazil)

other groups
Filipinos: More numerous in LA and Bay Area, and possibly Honolulu.
Greeks: More numerous in New York MSA, very close between Toronto, Chicago and Boston. Possibly more numerous in London too. Melbourne apparently has the most outside Greece.
Iranians: More numerous in LA area and Dubai.

 

[wild goose chase]

I think our Portuguese, Sri Lankan Tamil and Punjabi/Sikh populations are pretty substantial. For Punjabis and Sikhs I think Toronto (CMA) is #1 outside India/Pakistan although Vancouver is quite close. As for Sri Lankan Tamils, Toronto also seems to be #1 outside Sri Lanka and seems to rank quite high for Sri Lankans in general and Tamils in general.

I would have thought London would be up there for Sikhs and Punjabis. Toronto probably is a contender in South Asian/Indian representation in the western hemisphere more broadly (I think we rival New York and London in numbers of people of Indian descent; Trinidad and Tobago, as well as Guyana have more by % and are plurality South Asian, and have been that way for more generations, but they are smaller countries of about a million people).

For Sri Lankans, I was wondering about that too -- perhaps our Sri Lankan diaspora could be the largest worldwide, most of which are of Tamil descent in our city.
In terms of Tamils more broadly, I think Singapore would have us beat (many of the Indians in Singapore and Malaysia are of Tamil origin).

 

[wild goose chase]

Greeks: More numerous in New York MSA, very close between Toronto, Chicago and Boston. Possibly more numerous in London too. Melbourne apparently has the most outside Greece.

I think in terms of Greek language speakers, we might come close to NYC (just a quick search seems to come up something close to the 40,000s for both). My Big Fat Greek Wedding was set in Chicago, but filmed both there and in Toronto. I notice Toronto has kept more of its Greektown than Chicago has (either we preserved it more or maybe our Greek immigrants arrived later than theirs?).

Melbourne has us beat though by language or numbers. Plus, I think their Greek diaspora is even more close to the homeland in terms of when they arrived (as it seems the case for many Australian immigrant groups relative to North America).

 

[wild goose chase]

I think the Somali diaspora is likely also a contender, but a quick search gives uncertain estimates of numbers. I think the Twin Cities in Minnesota is well-known in that regard, but it seems like whether there are more Somali-Americans or Somali-Canadians depends on if you look at official or unofficial estimates.

 

[King of Kensington]

I think in terms of Greek language speakers, we might come close to NYC (just a quick search seems to come up something close to the 40,000s for both). My Big Fat Greek Wedding was set in Chicago, but filmed both there and in Toronto. I notice Toronto has kept more of its Greektown than Chicago has (either we preserved it more or maybe our Greek immigrants arrived later than theirs?).

Melbourne has us beat though by language or numbers. Plus, I think their Greek diaspora is even more close to the homeland in terms of when they arrived (as it seems the case for many Australian immigrant groups relative to North America).

There are 94,000 Greek speakers in New York and New Jersey, the vast majority who would be in metro NYC.

https://apps.mla.org/cgi-shl/docstudio/docs.pl?map_data_results

 

[wild goose chase]

There are 94,000 Greek speakers in New York and New Jersey, the vast majority who would be in metro NYC.

https://apps.mla.org/cgi-shl/docstudio/docs.pl?map_data_results

I was using this source, which gave 46, 083 speakers for the city. I don't know if there are discrepancies with it vs. the census data.

http://www.wnyc.org/story/255668-blog-census-languages-new-yorkers-speak/

 

[King of Kensington]

That's for NYC only, many Greeks have moved to the suburbs.

 

[wild goose chase]

It's hard to beat the NYC metro area in sheer numbers for many groups, I suppose.

Greater Melbourne having Greek as its most common non-English language with a count of 113,455 speakers is pretty impressive though, in that it has even more than the New York metro area. Also, next in number for Greater Melbourne are the 112,682 Italian speakers, followed by the 100,639 Mandarin speakers. Two Southern European languages on top after English -- not such a common pattern in North American cities.

http://profile.id.com.au/australia/language?WebID=260

 

[christiesplits]

How does Toronto's Italian population compare to other cities?

 

[wild goose chase]

I think for Italians, we are obviously behind New York (with nearly 1.9 million), but we are close to a few of the East Coast US cities of more similar size to Toronto. There are 475,090 of Italian origin in Toronto's CMA as of the last (2011) census, while Philadelphia, Chicago and Boston also have numbers near a half million according to this site, though it uses pretty old (1990) data.

According to the Canadian census, 883,990 people in Ontario have Italian origin, which puts us slightly above and comparable to Massachusetts (860,079) but behind the states of New York (with around 2.7 million) and New Jersey (1.5 million), California (1.45 million), Pennsylvania (1.4 million) and Florida (about a million) in 2010.

For Italian immigrants though, North America wasn't the only destination by far, and Australia, Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil have many Italian descendants too. São Paulo in Brazil often claims to have the most Italian ancestry outside Italy but I can't seem to find stats. I also don't know if self-identification with partial ancestries would be the same between countries.

 

[wild goose chase]

One thought I just had the other day regarding the European migration crisis with the Middle East and Africa now, was how the Italians, Greeks, Germans etc. themselves within a relatively short span of time, in terms of generations, went from countries that sent immigrants (to our side of the Atlantic) to countries that received immigrants on net.

It must be odd to have observed lots of your citizens wanting to leave, and then at another time much later, lots of new people wanting to come to and be citizens of your country, within your own lifetime.

 

[Memph]

I looks like London has 989,000 South Asians as of 2011, vs 858,000 in the Toronto CMA (2011 also). However, a larger portion of London's South Asians are from Pakistan and Bangladesh, about 50% for London vs about 15% for Toronto, which leaves Toronto with a larger number of Indians (presumably including Punjabis) and Sri Lankans. The New York MSA has a comparable number of South Asians, but I think fewer Sri Lankans and Punjabis and more other Indian ethnic groups and more Bangladeshis.