WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 (UPI) -- Nearly 1.2 million people living in the United States claim Arab ancestry, the U.S. Census Bureau said Wednesday.
The figure, taken from Census 2000 data, represents an increase of more than 300,000 over 1990 and is nearly double what was recorded in 1980.
Included in the calculation are Census 2000 respondents who indicated Arab, Egyptian, Iraqi, Jordanian, Lebanese, Middle Eastern, Moroccan, North African, Palestinian or Syrian as an ancestry on their questionnaire.
"Most people with ancestries originating from Arabic-speaking countries or areas of the world were categorized as Arab," the bureau said in a release.
The 2000 census allowed respondents to report as many as two ancestries on their forms.
"If either response was an Arab group," the bureau said, "the person was counted as being Arab, in addition to being counted in the other ancestry reported."
