Ohio State : Demographics

Migrants from the eastern states and from the British Isles and northern Europe, especially Germany were the first to settle in Ohio. Cincinnati had such a large German population that its public schools were bilingual until World War I. Slavic and other south Europeans were recruited in large numbers with the coming of the railroads and the development of industry.

By 2000, however, only about 3% of Ohioans were foreign born, the major places of origin being Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom. As of 2000, there were 1,301,307 blacks, representing 11.5% of the population most of them living in larger cities like Cleveland. Historically, Ohio was very active in the antislavery movement. Oberlin College, established in 1833 by dissident theological students, admitted blacks from its founding and maintained a "station" on the Underground Railroad. Cleveland elected its first black mayor, Carl B. Stokes, in 1967.

Some 217,123 people in Ohio (1.9% of the total population) were Hispanic or Latino in 2000, up from 140,000 in 1990. In 2000, American Indians numbered about 24,486 Asians were estimated to number 132,633, including 30,425 Chinese, 12,393 Filipinos, 10,732 Japanese, and 13,376 Koreans. Pacific Islanders numbered 2,749.

Except for small Iroquoian groups like the Erie and Seneca, most of the Indian population before white settlement comprised four Algonkian tribes.