SLO County is one of the most Irish counties in California, census data shows

Maybe it’s those rolling green hills, but San Luis Obispo County is actually home to one of the densest populations of people of Irish descent in the Golden State.

It’s also by far the most dense Irish population on the Central Coast, when compared with the overall county population.

According to data from the United States Census Bureau, roughly 12.1% of the county’s population claims Irish ancestry. That translates to about 34,215 residents whose ancestors hailed from the Emerald Isle.

That makes it the county with the ninth highest ratio of Irish-descended residents of California’s 58 counties, and the highest among Central Coast counties like Santa Barbara, Monterey and Ventura. (Santa Barbara and Ventura counties do have more residents claiming Irish ancestry, but because their populations are larger, the density ratio is smaller.)

The most Irish county in California? That would be Mariposa, where roughly 17% of the population claims Irish ancestry. The least Irish county is Imperial, with only 1.8% of the population.

Overall, about 5.9% of California’s population is Irish.

Here’s a breakdown of how Irish each California county is, according to census data:

Kaytlyn Leslie

The Tribune

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Kaytlyn Leslie writes about business and development for The San Luis Obispo Tribune. Hailing from Nipomo, she also covers city governments and happenings in San Luis Obispo. She joined The Tribune in 2013 after graduating from Cal Poly with her journalism degree.