Data: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 2023 5-year estimates (table B03003). Incorporates all cities and census-designated places with populations of 50,000 or more.
There are two honest ways to answer this question — and they produce very different lists.
The first looks at share: what percentage of a city’s residents identify as Hispanic or Latino? These cities, clustered near the US-Mexico border or across Southern California, are places where Spanish is the default language at the corner store, where the panadería opens before the sun’s properly up, and where the assumption runs the other way — you’d be the odd one out ordering in English.
The second looks at count: where do the most Hispanic Americans actually live? That list is dominated by the country’s largest metros — New York , Los Angeles, Houston. The share figures are lower, but the communities are some of the largest and most economically influential in the hemisphere.
Both rankings matter. They answer different questions. This guide covers both, using ACS 2023 5-year estimates — the most current federal data available.
How the data works
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2023 5-year estimates, table B03003 (Hispanic or Latino origin by total population).
Universe: All incorporated places and census-designated places (CDPs) with a total population of at least 50,000.
Definition: “Hispanic or Latino” is self-reported and includes anyone of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American, or other Spanish-speaking culture or origin, regardless of race. It’s an ethnicity category, not a racial one — a person can identify as both Hispanic and white, or Hispanic and Black.
Two rankings: Top 25 cities by Hispanic share (%), and top 25 by Hispanic count (number of residents).
Most Hispanic cities by percentage
These are the cities where Hispanic residents form the largest share of the total population. The top of the list is dominated by Los Angeles basin communities and Texas border cities — places where the demographic isn’t a community within a city. It is the city.
Top 10 by Hispanic share
| Rank | City | State | Hispanic pop. | Total pop. | % Hispanic |
| 1 | Huntington Park | CA | 51,820 | 53,658 | 96.57% |
| 2 | East Los Angeles CDP | CA | 109,553 | 114,617 | 95.58% |
| 3 | Hialeah | FL | 211,340 | 221,901 | 95.24% |
| 4 | Laredo | TX | 243,667 | 255,949 | 95.20% |
| 5 | Pharr | TX | 75,817 | 79,809 | 95.00% |
| 6 | South Gate | CA | 87,199 | 91,836 | 94.95% |
| 7 | Brownsville | TX | 177,146 | 188,023 | 94.22% |
| 8 | Florence –Graham CDP | CA | 57,647 | 61,723 | 93.40% |
| 9 | Tamiami CDP | FL | 47,302 | 51,201 | 92.38% |
| 10 | Pico Rivera | CA | 55,059 | 60,821 | 90.53% |
Full top-25 by percentage available in the accompanying data file.
Cities to know
Huntington Park, California — 96.57%
Huntington Park sits about 10 km southeast of downtown Los Angeles — close enough that the skyline catches the light on a clear morning, far enough that most people outside LA County have never heard of it. At 96.57%, it’s the most Hispanic city of its size anywhere in the continental United States. Pacific Boulevard, the main commercial strip, functions as a working-class Mexican-American high street: taquerías with handwritten menus, quinceañera dress shops with full window displays, framing and print shops, and fruit vendors with carts out before 8 a.m.
East Los Angeles CDP, California — 95.58%
East LA is technically an unincorporated community — no mayor, no city taxes, governed by Los Angeles County rather than the city. But it has a more distinct identity than most incorporated cities three times its size. Home to roughly 115,000 people, it’s a founding site of Chicano political culture in the US. The Chicano Moratorium marches of 1970 originated here, and the murals on freeway underpasses still carry those histories. The 95.58% figure reflects what residents have known for generations: this isn’t a neighbourhood within a city. It’s a city within a county.
Hialeah, Florida — 95.24%
Hialeah is the city that most directly challenges the assumption that “Hispanic” means “Mexican-American.” Of its 211,000 Hispanic residents, the overwhelming majority are of Cuban or Cuban-American heritage — a community that arrived in waves from the 1960s onward and built something specific and unmistakable. The dominant language is Spanish, but it’s Cuban Spanish: fast, elided, and inflected with a rhythm distinct from Laredo or East LA. Hialeah’s identity is woven into its commerce, its politics, and the pace of its streets in ways that make it feel less like a Florida suburb and more like a city with no exact equivalent elsewhere.
Laredo, Texas — 95.20%
Laredo is the largest US city on the US-Mexico border, and one of the most economically significant points on that entire 3,000 km line. The port of entry here is consistently among the busiest land crossings in the Western hemisphere — hundreds of freight trucks cross daily, and the workforce that keeps it moving is almost entirely Hispanic. The 95.20% figure reflects a border reality: Laredo and its Mexican counterpart, Nuevo Laredo, function as a single binational metro of more than 600,000 people, divided by the Rio Grande and a customs checkpoint.
Brownsville, Texas — 94.22%
Brownsville appears regularly in studies of income inequality and healthcare access — it’s among the poorest cities of its size in the country. But those statistics can obscure something equally true: this is a rooted, long-established community whose history predates Texas statehood. The Spanish-language presence here isn’t demographic drift. It’s the original cultural layer. The city existed before the international border did.
Most Hispanic cities by population
The percentage ranking shows where Latino culture is dominant by proportion. The count ranking answers a different question: where do the most Hispanic Americans live?
The answer involves the country’s largest cities. New York’s 2.4 million Hispanic residents make it the single largest Hispanic urban community in the US — even though Hispanics account for only 28% of the city’s total population.
Top 25 by Hispanic population
| Rank | City | State | Hispanic pop. | Total pop. | % Hispanic |
| 1 | New York | NY | 2,420,539 | 8,516,202 | 28.42% |
| 2 | Los Angeles | CA | 1,822,163 | 3,857,897 | 47.23% |
| 3 | Houston | TX | 1,013,768 | 2,300,419 | 44.07% |
| 4 | San Antonio | TX | 939,737 | 1,458,954 | 64.41% |
| 5 | Chicago | IL | 801,852 | 2,707,648 | 29.61% |
| 6 | Phoenix | AZ | 678,869 | 1,624,832 | 41.78% |
| 7 | El Paso | TX | 551,539 | 678,147 | 81.33% |
| 8 | Dallas | TX | 545,002 | 1,299,553 | 41.94% |
| 9 | San Diego | CA | 409,493 | 1,385,061 | 29.56% |
| 10 | Fort Worth | TX | 326,004 | 941,311 | 34.63% |
| 11 | Miami | FL | 317,968 | 446,663 | 71.19% |
| 12 | Austin | TX | 311,890 | 967,862 | 32.22% |
| 13 | San Jose | CA | 306,450 | 990,054 | 30.95% |
| 14 | Fresno | CA | 274,817 | 543,615 | 50.55% |
| 15 | Albuquerque | NM | 269,483 | 562,488 | 47.91% |
| 16 | Laredo | TX | 243,667 | 255,949 | 95.20% |
| 17 | Santa Ana | CA | 240,772 | 311,639 | 77.26% |
| 18 | Philadelphia | PA | 240,543 | 1,582,432 | 15.20% |
| 19 | Tucson | AZ | 232,048 | 543,348 | 42.71% |
| 20 | Las Vegas | NV | 222,149 | 650,873 | 34.13% |
| 21 | Bakersfield | CA | 218,809 | 408,366 | 53.58% |
| 22 | Hialeah | FL | 211,340 | 221,901 | 95.24% |
| 23 | Denver | CO | 199,425 | 713,734 | 27.94% |
| 24 | Long Beach | CA | 199,087 | 458,491 | 43.42% |
| 25 | Corpus Christi | TX | 194,902 | 317,383 | 61.41% |
Cities to know
New York City — 2,420,539 (28.42%)
New York’s 2.4 million Hispanic residents don’t form one community. They form dozens. Puerto Rican neighbourhoods in the South Bronx and East Harlem carry roots going back to the 1940s. Washington Heights in upper Manhattan is where Dominican culture has shaped a stretch of Broadway into one of the densest concentrations of Caribbean urban life in the world — the smell of sancocho drifting out of windows at noon, bachata on car speakers at volume. Mexican and Ecuadorian enclaves fill parts of Queens. Colombian communities anchor Jackson Heights. The 28.42% citywide figure undersells the density; in some neighbourhoods the share exceeds 90%. New York is where the internal diversity of the Hispanic category becomes most visible.
San Antonio, Texas — 939,737 (64.41%)
San Antonio occupies a particular position in Mexican-American history because much of its history is Mexican-American history. The city was part of New Spain, then Mexico, before it became part of Texas. The cultural presence here isn’t a product of 20th-century migration — it’s a 300-year-old root system. With 939,737 Hispanic residents and a 64.41% share, San Antonio is the largest majority-Hispanic city by population in the continental United States.
El Paso, Texas — 551,539 (81.33%)
El Paso appears in both rankings, and for good reason. At 81.33%, it sits high on the percentage list; at 551,539 residents, it carries the seventh-largest Hispanic population in the country. It also sits directly across the Rio Grande from Ciudad Juárez — and together, the two cities form a binational metro of roughly 2.7 million people. Around 70% of El Paso’s residents speak Spanish at home, placing it among the two dozen US cities where Spanish is the majority home language.
Chicago, Illinois — 801,852 (29.61%)
Chicago’s 800,000-plus Hispanic residents are primarily of Mexican origin, concentrated in distinct neighbourhoods on the northwest and southwest sides: Pilsen, Little Village, and Humboldt Park. Little Village’s 26th Street commercial corridor generates more retail sales than any street in the city outside the Magnificent Mile — a fact that tends to surprise people who’ve never been. Chicago’s Hispanic community is the fifth-largest in any US city, but it’s routinely overlooked in national coverage that defaults to the Sun Belt.
Miami, Florida — 317,968 (71.19%)
Miami is both a percentage city and a count city: 71.19% Hispanic across 446,000 total residents. Cuban and Cuban-American culture built the political and commercial infrastructure of the city over the last 60 years — a fact reflected in everything from local government to the restaurants on Calle Ocho, where the coffee at the counter window arrives strong and unsolicited. More recently, Venezuelan, Colombian, and Nicaraguan communities have added new layers to a city that already has more cultural complexity than its beach reputation suggests.
What these rankings tell us
A few patterns are worth naming.
Texas dominates both lists. Seven of the top 10 cities by percentage are in Texas or California. By count, Texas places five cities in the top 25 — San Antonio, Houston, El Paso, Dallas, Fort Worth, and Laredo. The Texas border region in particular represents a cultural and demographic reality older than the state itself.
The LA basin produces the highest shares. Five of the top 10 cities by percentage are in the Los Angeles metro — Huntington Park, East LA, South Gate, Florence-Graham, and Pico Rivera. These communities have Hispanic shares above 90%, but they rarely appear in national coverage because they aren’t well-known independent cities.
“Hispanic” describes extraordinary diversity. New York’s community is heavily Puerto Rican and Dominican. Miami’s is predominantly Cuban. San Antonio’s is overwhelmingly of Mexican heritage. Laredo and the Rio Grande Valley cities are almost entirely Mexican and Mexican-American in origin. These places share a census category — they don’t share a monolithic culture, a single cuisine, or a single political tradition.
Philadelphia and Denver are quietly significant. Philadelphia’s 240,543 Hispanic residents (15.2% of the city) and Denver’s 199,425 (27.94%) don’t register in most discussions of Hispanic America. Both communities have grown substantially over the last two decades, and both carry political and economic weight disproportionate to their national profile.
Related guides
Data source: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2023 5-year estimates, table B03003. Universe: incorporated places and CDPs with total population ≥ 50,000. ACS 5-year estimates represent an average over the 2019–2023 survey period; figures are estimates with margins of error, not exact census counts. Full methodology and data files available on request.