# "There are more Irish/Polish/Japanese/French in X city than in Dublin/Warsaw etc."?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-are-more-irish-polish-japanese-french-in-x-city-than-in-dublin-warsaw-etc/605151>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [December 5, 2011, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-are-more-irish-polish-japanese-french-in-x-city-than-in-dublin-warsaw-etc/605151 "2011-12-05T18:22:54Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![hibernicus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hibernicus/32/2802_2.png) [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)\
**Post date:** [December 8, 2011, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-are-more-irish-polish-japanese-french-in-x-city-than-in-dublin-warsaw-etc/605151/41 "2011-12-08T22:53:29Z")

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> [@An\_Gadai](#):
>
> I’d love to be able to get this channel.

Anyone in Ireland can get BBC Alba free from the same satellite that delivers Sky TV programming (28.2E).

Sorry about the hijack.

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**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\
**Post date:** [December 8, 2011, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-are-more-irish-polish-japanese-french-in-x-city-than-in-dublin-warsaw-etc/605151/42 "2011-12-08T23:54:25Z")

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> [@Terr](#):
>
> I always heard the saying as “Chicago is the second biggest Polish city in the world, after Warsaw”.

This is what I’ve always heard. Or simply: “The largest number of X people outside of X country–or its capital.” They say this about L.A. for the following.

Mexicans, Mexico City  
Thais, Bangkok  
Armenians, Armenia (former Soviet Republic)  
Koreans, Seoul  
Iranians, Iran  
Samoans, Samoa

and maybe some others. However, many of the Iranians are in Beverly Hills, many of the the Armenians are in Glendale, and most of the Samoans are in Carson–cities within L.A. County. I can’t remember where, but I once heard that L.A. has the largest number of British illegal immigrants in the country.

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**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\
**Post date:** [December 9, 2011, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-are-more-irish-polish-japanese-french-in-x-city-than-in-dublin-warsaw-etc/605151/43 "2011-12-09T00:05:59Z")

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> [@hibernicus](#):
>
> Anyone in Ireland can get BBC Alba free from the same satellite that delivers Sky TV programming (28.2E).
> 
> Sorry about the hijack.

Really? I have Sky+ and I had BBC Alba for a while but it seems to be gone. Will have to check the extra channels. Thanks for the info.

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**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\
**Post date:** [December 9, 2011, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-are-more-irish-polish-japanese-french-in-x-city-than-in-dublin-warsaw-etc/605151/44 "2011-12-09T00:53:07Z")

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> [@Johanna](#):
>
> Cleveland is my birthplace, and I never heard that one.

[Here’s an example:](http://www.cleveland.com/heritage/index.ssf?/heritage/more/hungary/hungary1.html)

> [@](#):
>
> Hungarians comprised a tightly knit community of immigrants and their offspring. They maintained their customs and paved the way for others from their homeland to join the Hungarian population of Cleveland - in the 1920s, the largest of any city outside of Budapest.

Outdated information (if it was true), but I’ve heard it from people who probably just repeated it often enough that it passed down through the years without people checking on the current state of the Hungarian population in Cleveland.

ETA: [Here’s a different version of it:](http://www.golflink.com/list_30835_hungarian-restaurants-cleveland.html)

> [@](#):
>
> It’s said that Cleveland has the largest Hungarian population outside the Karpathyan Basin.

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**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\
**Post date:** [December 9, 2011, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-are-more-irish-polish-japanese-french-in-x-city-than-in-dublin-warsaw-etc/605151/45 "2011-12-09T05:31:48Z")

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I can easily believe that people kept repeating old factoids from 90 years ago without updating the data. At least the article on [cleveland.com](http://cleveland.com) reality checked that it was back in the 1920s and the Hungarian population has shrunk since then.

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**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\
**Post date:** [December 9, 2011, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-are-more-irish-polish-japanese-french-in-x-city-than-in-dublin-warsaw-etc/605151/46 "2011-12-09T05:53:15Z")

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> [@Johanna](#):
>
> I can easily believe that people kept repeating old factoids from 90 years ago without updating the data. At least the article on [cleveland.com](http://cleveland.com) reality checked that it was back in the 1920s and the Hungarian population has shrunk since then.

The same thing is said of Chicago (largest Polish city outside the capital). In 1930, the city had nearly 400,000 inhabitants of Polish foreign stock ([Cite, PDF.](http://www.robparal.com/downloads/Polish%20Community%20in%20Chicago.pdf)), and now the city has half of that. Yet, I still hear that Chicago is the second-largest Polish city outside of Warsaw. That may have been true in 1930 (although I’m not entirely sure it was even true then. I think Łódź had a larger population at the time), but today it’s only true if you compare the Chicago metro area to Polish cities proper (not metro areas.)

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