We started the week talking Amish population–so why don’t we close doing more of the same! First, there were a number of interesting points from the recent Young Center Amish population data that I wanted to share, but couldn’t really fit on the Amish population infographic: There are 480 Amish settlements, but most are small. Fifty-two percent of all settlements are just one district in size. There…
You may remember news last summer that researchers had conducted a nationwide Amish population survey.  I just had a chance to read an interesting paper detailing their findings.  Here are 5 of them: 1. New settlements On average a new settlement is founded every few weeks.  This rate has been increasing. From 1990-2000, a settlement was founded, on average, every 5.33 weeks.  2000-2010 saw this…
Pennsylania Amishman John Stoltzfus has agreed to answer some reader questions. Â Last week’s concerned Amish medical care and use of vaccinations. As before, John notes that he will take a general approach to his answers, keeping in mind that communities differ. Today’s question is on Amish migration: How do settlements get started? Is it just people from previous settlements moving and starting them in other…
Two weeks ago we looked at growth of the Amish in Tennessee. Â This documentary (now unavailable) examines Amish expansion near the town of Moira, New York. Â Karen Johnson-Weiner provides some good commentary. Â I found the various reactions of the locals particularly interesting. What do you think?
The Young Center of Elizabethtown College has just released annual Amish population estimates. Â The big news: over the past year Amish settled two states with no existing communities. Wyoming I had heard about Amish heading to Wyoming late last summer. Â I’m told the new community has ties with Amish in southern Wisconsin. At around half a million people, Â Wyoming is America’s least-populated state, but one…
In 1991, there were 215 Amish settlements in North America.  20 years later, the number was 427 (see this 20-year review at the Amish Studies site). The Amish population doubles every 2 decades (give or take).  But this doesn’t mean that existing communities just double in size. As they grow, Amish move.  Big communities lose members to daughter settlements.  Smaller settlements shed residents too, as Amish form new churches…
How big is the Amish population? As of 2011, the total Amish population is 261,150, according to the latest estimates by the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College. No new states made the list this year.  So the total Amish tally remains at 28 states (and Ontario).  I guess we’ll have to wait another year for that Hawaii Amish entry. It makes me…
Once, an Amish acquaintance with an interest in numbers showed me a few calculations. He had worked out the theoretical Amish population far into the future, using the assumption that it doubles every 20 years. The numbers get big quickly. Â Total Amish population (currently 250,000) hits a million sometime in the 2050s, and rockets from there. A recent academic study (on the spread of a…
“New York” and “Amish” may seem an odd match. But the Empire State has seen its Amish population soar in recent years, and is currently home to the 5th-largest grouping of Amish in North America. SUNY-Potsdam Professor of Anthropology Karen Johnson-Weiner has spent years researching the various Amish communities in New York. Karen’s new book New York Amish: Life in the Plain Communities of the…
Just got a hot tip from the Young Center that the 2009 Amish population statistics are up at the Amish Studies web site. A couple quick things I noticed between this year’s and last year’s numbers:Â on the lower end, Arkansas has jumped from 1 to 3 settlements, and the Maine Amish, Montana Amish, and Kansas Amish have all added a settlement. Ohio, Pennsylvania, and…