Chinese Americans are Americans of Chinese ancestry. Many Chinese Americans have ancestors from mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, as well as other regions that are inhabited by large populations of the Chinese diaspora, especially Southeast Asia and some other countries such as Australia, Canada, France, South Africa, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. Chinese Americans include people who became naturalized U.S. citizens as well as their natural-born descendants in the United States.
The Chinese American community is the largest Chinese community outside Asia. It is also the third-largest community in the Chinese diaspora, behind the Chinese communities in Thailand and Malaysia. The 2022 American Community Survey of the U.S. Census estimated the population of Chinese Americans at 5,465,428, including 4,258,198 who were Chinese alone, and 1,207,230 who were part Chinese. According to the 2010 census, the Chinese American population numbered about 3.8 million. In 2010, half of the Chinese-born people in the United States lived in California and New York.