Both Los Angeles and San Francisco have large numbers of residents with British, French, Italian, Iranian/Persian,[37] German, Russian, and Scandinavian ancestry.

[34] Latinos in California primarily identify as Other Race (46.7%) or Multiracial (36.6%) with smaller amounts as white (12.8%), American Indian and Alaskan Native (2.6%), Asian (0.6%), and Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (0.2%).

A small wave of Danish, Dutch and Swedish immigrants founded towns like Lathrop near Stockton, Artesia near Los Angeles, Kingsburg south of Fresno, Solvang north of Santa Barbara in the late 1800s and the private community of Sveadal located 15 miles south of San Jose and populated entirely by members of the Swedish American Patriotic League.

"[54][55] Little Arabia grew significantly in the 1990s with the arrival of immigrants from the Middle East, and is the home to thousands of Arab Americans predominantly hailing from Egypt, Syria, Palestine, and Yemen.

[61] Their community is centered around the only Karaite synagogue outside the Middle East, Congregation B'nai Israel, located in Daly City.

The US census includes Latin American Indian, especially immigrants who belonged to Indigenous peoples or who have Amerindian heritage from North and South America.

They are often descendants of Dust Bowl refugees in the 1930s and 1940s who migrated to the state's farming counties and urban areas for jobs.

[73] California also has significant populations of the Apache, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee, Seminole, Tlingit, Hopi, Zuni, Navajo, Blackfeet, Shoshone, Nez Perce, Paiute, Pueblo, Tohono Oʼodham, Cahuilla, Chumash, Karuk, Yurok, and Yokuts tribes.

[74] The state has a long history of established East, South, and Southeast Asian American communities, including Chinese since the 1850s, Japanese since the 1880s, Indians since the 1890s, and Filipinos for over a century since 1900.

[78] Out of those almost 5.6 million Asian Americans in California there are 1,474,707 Filipinos, 1,349,111 Chinese, 647,589 Vietnamese, 590,445 Indians, 505,225 Koreans, 428,140 Japanese, 109,928 Taiwanese, 102,317 Cambodians, 91,224 Hmong, 69,303 Laotians, 67,707 Thais, 53,474 Pakistanis, 39,506 Borneans, Sumatrans, and Indonesians, 17,978 Burmese, 11,929 Sri Lankans, 10,494 Bangladeshis, 6,231 Nepalese, 5,595 Malaysians, 4,993 Mongolians, 1,513 Singaporeans, 1,377 Ryukyuans, and 750 Bhutanese.

Southern California has perhaps the largest Taiwan-born Chinese American community in the US, particularly in the San Gabriel Valley (i.e. Walnut and Diamond Bar), Buena Park, Cerritos, West Covina, Irvine, communities in the South Bay, Los Angeles and southern Orange County.

There is another large Korean American population in the San Francisco Bay Area, and Koreans are growing in number in the suburban Inland Empire region, in cities such as Chino Hills, Corona, Desert Hot Springs, and Loma Linda south of San Bernardino.

California has the largest American population of Southeast Asians, concentrated in the Los Angeles-Long Beach, Sacramento, and Fresno areas.

The neighboring cities of Westminster and Garden Grove have the largest Vietnamese American community outside of Vietnam and are often dubbed "Little Saigon".

Daly City south of San Francisco has a large Filipino population and is the largest percentage wise in the United States.

Latinos, mainly Mexican Americans, form major portions of the population of Southern California, especially in Los Angeles, as well as the San Joaquin Valley.

[82] In Mariposa County, there is a very small community of Californios or Spanish American people as they identify themselves, that dates back before the US annexation of California.

Note: Births in table do not add up, because Hispanics are counted both by their ethnicity and by their race, giving a higher overall number.

[105] However, many state, city, and local government agencies still continue to print official public documents in numerous languages.

As a result of the state's increasing diversity and migration from other areas across the country and around the globe, linguists began noticing a noteworthy set of emerging characteristics of spoken English in California since the late 20th century.

[110] The state also has a large American Jewish community, the second-largest in the nation, as well as largest in the Western US, and third-largest in the world, mainly concentrated in Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, San Francisco, Oakland, Sacramento, and Palm Springs.

Most Catholics in California are of Mexican, Central American, Irish, German, Italian, Vietnamese, Filipino, and Korean ancestry.

The population of Catholic Californians is rapidly growing due to the influx of Latin American, Asian, African, and Middle Eastern Christian immigrants.

In the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, Sunday Mass is celebrated in 42 different languages representing more than 30 ethnic groups from around the world.

The Los Angeles metropolitan area has become unique in the Buddhist world as the only place where representative organizations of every major school of Buddhism can be found in a single urban center.

For example, a group of a few hundred Latter-day Saint converts from the Northeastern United States and Europe arrived at what would become San Francisco in the 1840s aboard the ship Brooklyn, more than doubling the population of the small town.

[110] According to the LDS Church 2014 statistics, 780,200 Latter-day Saints reside in the state of California, attending almost 1400 congregations statewide.

[123] A Pew Research Center survey revealed, however, that California is less religious than the rest of the United States: 62% of Californians say they are "absolutely certain" of the belief "in God or a universal spirit", while in the nation 71% say so.

[128][129] Correspondingly, the percent of Californians with income below their poverty threshold has risen and fallen, but has on average increased by a tenth of a percentage point per year.

[130] Increasing income inequality has had many effects on Californians' lives, including on life expectancy, which can be taken as a proxy for health or even general welfare.