UMass Boston

The Institute for Asian American Studies is posting selected tables on Asian Americans and other racial/ethnic groups in Massachusetts from the 2020 Decennial Census on its website. For more data from the 2020 Census and from the American Community Survey (which includes older population data and detailed socio-economic data by state, city, and Asian subgroup), please see our report: Asian Americans in Massachusetts, including Boston and Other Selected Cities.

The Decennial Census is conducted every ten years and provides the most accurate counts of people in the nation, states, and smaller geographical areas, as well as information about age, sex, race and ethnicity, homeownership, and household composition. 2020 data will be released by the Census Bureau in phases.

The American Community Survey (ACS), conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau, is a nationwide survey that collects information on a sample of U.S. households every year. The data is released as one-year and five-year estimates. Annual estimates contain the more timely information but have smaller sample sizes and are available only for geographic areas or groups with populations of 65,000 or larger. The five-year estimates are based on data collected in five consecutive years and therefore have larger sample sizes, but the data is less timely.

For more on U.S. Census data, go to https://data.census.gov.