The South Asian community in the United States comprises of individuals with ancestry from the following nations:

BANGLADESH
BHUTAN
PAKISTAN
INDIA
MALDIVE ISLANDS
NEPAL
SRI LANKA

The community also includes members of the South Asian diaspora - past generations of South Asians who originally settled in many areas around the world, including the Caribbean (Guyana, Jamaica, Surinam, and Trinidad & Tobago), Africa (Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda), Canada, Europe, and other parts of Asia and the Pacific Islands (Fiji, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore).

The community is far from homogeneous; South Asians are not only diverse in terms of national origin, but also by virtue of possessing a variety of ethnic, religious, and linguistic characteristics. The community is comprised of individuals who practice distinct religions and speak different languages, yet share similar immigration histories. For example, South Asians practice Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Jainism, Judaism, Islam, Sikhism, and Zoroastrianism. The most common languages other than English spoken by South Asians in the United States include Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Punjabi, and Urdu.

For more information about the community, including demographic information, please visit the Point of entry toolkit on our "Factsheets" page.