If you’ve already picked out your lederhosen and have been practicing the chicken dance for months, you already know Cincinnati comes by its Oktoberfest celebration honestly.
This place is German. Really German.
Yet our area is only the fourth most German among the 53 U.S. metro areas with at least one million people. Milwaukee, Minneapolis-St. Paul and St. Louis all rank ahead of us.
We also aren’t the most German place in Ohio; that distinction goes to Lima, an Enquirer analysis of 2017 Census Bureau estimates for residents of German heritage shows.
Still, with more than one of every four local residents claiming German heritage, Cincinnati is still German. Really German, which helps explain why our Oktoberfest (put on by the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber) is the biggest in North America.
So which municipality among this heavily German population is the most German? A deeper dive into Census estimates reveals that the West Side may know its brats and beer a little better than the rest of us.
The five communities with the most people of German origin all are townships on the West Side: Harrison, Delhi, Miami, Crosby and Green townships all boast populations that claim to be roughly 50 percent German.
Still, the rest of the region isn’t far behind, a look at Census estimates for the first half of this decade shows. The top 20 communities all have populations that are one-third German and the top 62 are at least one-fourth German.
Only 11 communities in the region fall below 20 percent German.
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