According to this Yahoo article (about Bush & Kerry trying to woo absentee votes from American ex-pats in Israel), Israel has the 5th-highest population of US expatriates.
The article doesn’t mention what the other four are.
You can probably guess my question by now.
At a guess, Iraq, Germany, and the UK are right up there due to the American military.
My guess is that Canada has to be #1 by virtue of proximity of and language.
Well, according to this article in Capitol Street Blue, the largest American expat communities are, in order:
Canada
Mexico
Britain
Germany
It doesn’t mention Israel. Anyway, while this article is hardly definitive it does mention that there are an estimated 3 million American Expats out there. Sadly, the US Census does not seem to try and count expats (I lived overseas during the last census but don’t remember if they sent me anything or not) and there is no formal (or even informal) process for registering to live abroad. If you file an income tax return and claim an “expat deduction” that’s one way to count folks, or whoever files as expat for absentee ballots, although that would be extremely sparse data. I couldn’t find anything specific at the US Census site: www.census.gov
Climate or cost of living would seem to be a more important factor than language. According to the organization “American Citizens Abroad”, 25% of American expatriates reside in our other neighbor, Mexico, while only 17% reside in Canada. The UK and Germany have about 5% each, leaving Israel fifth at 4% of the total (from their 1999 report). Transient foreign deployments of tens or hundreds of thousands of soldiers could definitely affect these results: there were 184,195 expatriates in Israel in 1999.
The US Census doesn’t count expatriates, since the census was constitutionally mandated to apportion representation, and expatriates are not represented in Congress. As of the beginning of the summer, the ‘2004 test census’ of expatariates had only enumerated just over 4000 of the estimated 4 million expatriates. Perhaps we’ll get more thorough coverage with the 2006 test census, now that the State Department is strongly suggesting reistering with your local embassy (something they’ve long waffled over, because of th workload)
My WAG would be that family connections are the most important factor. A significant proportion of the US citizens living in Mexico probably have dual US and Mexican nationality, and are at least partly of Mexican descent. They may, for example, have been born in the US to one or possibly two parents who were migrant workers from Mexico, and who have returned from Mexico. Similarly, the large numbers in Germany and the UK represent not just servicemen and women posted there, but ex-servicemen and women who have married and remained, and the children of servicemen and women who were raised there, and have settled and perhaps married there.
Of the total of US expatriates, I would guess that the proportion represented by WASPs who have chosen to live abroad primarily because they prefer the climate or they find it cheaper is very small.
I don’t know how big the population of American ex-pats is in Australia. But there was a story in one of the Sydney papers a couple of weeks ago about one of the parties (the Republicans, I think) that had set up a stall in the main financial district of Sydney, distributing information and encouraging ex-pats to vote in the American elections.
Your observation is likely very significant. The proportion of US citizens of Mexican descent is quite significant and growing more so every year. Overall, resident Americans of all Hispanic descents are a major reason why self-reported “WASPs” are expected to be a minority in the 2010 or 2020 census (though they will still be the largest group, they may no longer be the majority)
However, in my experience, “Anglo” American expatriates are quite common in Mexico. It’s true that they are also fairly common in Canada, but it’s important to keep in mind that Canada’s entire population is under 30 million, while Mexico City alone has a population of over 20 million, and is larger than any US city.
When I cited cost of living and climate, I was thinking of the reasons mentioned by American expatriates I have met in Mexico and throughout South and Central America (e.g. Costa Rica, which had a proportionately huge, but numerically fairly small, US expatriate community). This was undoubtedly a biased sample, but I knew a quite a few Anglo Americans in industries like tourism, hospitality, and commerce, in both local businesses and international conglomerates.
Further, the estimated 4 million US expatriates is large enough to rank it above Kentucky, 25th of the 50 US states (per ACA), but it is still small enough that even a small fraction of the rapidly increasing “over 55” retired or semi-retired demographic can be a huge factor.
I don’t mean to contest what you suggested. I found it a very valuable insight. As as a fervent US patriot who has lived overseas and who is considering a possible (distant) eventual retirement outside the US (partly inspired by an impending foreign sabbatical), I’ve always found the reasons for living overseas to be diverse and often idiosyncratic. I would actually be very interested in the results of a US census of expatriates, though I doubt such an enumeration will be comprehensive enough to rely on until at least the 2020 census.
You may, of course, unwittingly have met many more US citizens in Mexico, South and Central America who you didn’t spot as American because they weren’t Anglo-Americans.
A friend of mine is married to an American. If you met his wife, you would instantly identify her as an American. Their four children are also US citizens, but you wouldn’t know this from meeting them, since they have been raised entirely in Ireland and France, and have Irish as well as US citizenship.
My guess is that US citizens who live abroad because of family or cultural links - my friend’s children - may be less conspicuous that those who live abroad because of a lifestyle choice - my friend’s wife - but they are likely to be far more numerous.
The most accurate way to put it may be to say that climate and/or cost-of-living are the principal factors influencing the decision of those US expatriates <i>who do not live abroad for family or cultural reasons</i>, and that this group is probably a minority of all expatriates, although a conspicuous and signficant minority.
It may be a minority which matters more to the US domestically. My guess would be that these expatriates are more likely to vote in US elections, since they are probably disenfranchised in their countries of residence and may feel disconnected from the political process there, and they may have a greater propensity to return to the US at some point than those who have family or cultural links with their country of residence.
I’m related to an American expat in Mexico City (technically more than one, but my cousins were born there so they’re Mexicans, too), and I can say with anecdotic authority, there are loads of them. There are several American high schools in Mexico City; although not all of the students are Americans, a lot of them are.
The point of a census is to count who is in the country right now and so people outside the country are not relevant. If you had happened to be in another country who were doing their own census that day, then you would have to fill that one in.
Since you asked for the “highest” population - generally I would say the Netherlands. Just about every American I saw in Amsterdam was high on something. But I suppose that you could suggest Nepal too. There is serious altitude there.
Why on earth would an expat want to do this? It seems like providing an incentive for anti-American terrorists in the country to hack into the embassy’s computers, so they can have all the details of Americans living there. I prefer to blend into the local population and hope they don’t notice me 
Consulates and embassies have always encouraged expats to register with them just in case they need to be contacted - a family death back home, for example. I wouldn’t worry about the consulate and embassy computers being hacked. I would be more concerned with some of the people who work in the consulates and embassies and have access to the information.
There are a lot easier ways to find Americans in foreign countries.
Examples Walloon? I mean for those of us who don’t hang around with other American expats.
He probably means the uniform… you know, Nikes, blue jeans or khakis and baseball cap. 