The map above shows the distribution of European-born German-speakers based on the 1890 census.

The different shades of brown indicate varying densities of persons born in German-speaking territories: the darkest color shows 20 individuals or more per square mile, the lightest color shows fewer than 1/2 per square mile, and no color at all shows a total aggregate population of fewer than two persons per square mile. The map does not reveal information about the proportion of Germans vis-à-vis other groups, and a greater density of Germans in some areas may be largely a sign of a greater total population density there. Nevertheless, what one understands at a glance is that German-born immigrants were concentrated in cities as well as in the countryside from New York City in the east to Minnesota in the west and from the Great Lakes region south to the Ohio River. But there were also other German areas, including parts of Texas, California, and the state of Washington.

It is estimated that between 1800 and the present over seven million German-speakers emigrated to the U.S., the majority of whom arrived between about 1840 and 1914, with the peak period coming in the early 1880s. In the nineteenth century many of these immigrants settled in the states of the Upper Midwest, an area known to this day as America’s “German Belt.”