How big is the American expat population in Oz?

[An American in Paris]

The answer is: No one knows. But it has long been considered one of the largest overseas American populations in the world.

Why is this important? Because Americans living abroad are not counted in the U.S. Census. And understanding the size and location of the American expat population is essential to improving the distribution of government resources, such as access to voting, social security and consular services, to U.S. citizens overseas.

That is the reason Overseas Vote Foundation is working with international and domestic organizations in the Overseas Citizens Count to determine the number of Americans living abroad and how we are dispersed geographically.

So Americans residing in Australia -- and around the world -- are invited to step up today and be counted at http://counting-citizens-abroad.org/ It's fast and easy!

See this report published in The Telegraph for more information: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/expat/expatnews/8564028/Organisation-appeals-for-expat-Americans-to-stand-up-and-be-counted.html

And don't forget to pass this message along to your American friends and family members living abroad!

Overseas Vote Foundation's website can be found here http://overseasvotefoundation.org

[Violet_Crumble]

1. According to Wikipedia, there's just over 56,000 here...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Australian

Though that's counting people like one of my friends, who has a mother who moved here from the US, so it's probably not all that accurate...

[mackerel]

2. As Australia is doing most of the hiring in the world

you'll find more and more Irish, Northern Irish, Canadian's and Amererican's moving there.

[An American in Paris]

3. Those are "American Australians"

Which according to Wikipedia, includes Europeans and anyone descended from anyone in North or South America. We're of course trying to count only those residents of Australia who hold U.S. citizenship. So that would be only a subgroup of those in Wikipedia's number. But some American sources give the number of U.S. citizens in Australia at over 100,000.

BTW, hi, Violet Crumble. Glad to see you still around here. I was a very asiduous poster at DU back in the day... the first couple years after the launch. Used the handle Paschall. I had to step back as I was so caught up in work and other outside political activities... Now it seems my community oriented political action is moving back onto the internet! So I'll probably be popping up here more often!

[Violet_Crumble]

4. Hey, I remember you!

It's good to see you at DU again. I always enjoyed yr posts. :hi:

[canetoad]

6. If Wikipedia uses the term

"American Australians", you can be sure the article was written by an American.

Here we tend not to use the country-prefix as Americans do, for example: irish-american, african-american, italian-american. In the old days, migrants were all lumped together under the label of 'new australian'. Not so much anymore.

I don't doubt the figure; there are obviously a several thousand Americans that call Australia home. I have none in my circle, though there are a couple of Canadians. Americans seem to be fairly thin on the ground in Oz.

[MrModerate]

5. I'd tend to believe that the number has grown substantially . . .

Since any previous count was made. My company alone has brought over 250 US citizen employees to the country over the last three years. Add in family members and it's probably three times that. And we're just one company.

As an earlier poster suggested, it has a lot to do with the commodities boom.

Although I missed Overseas Vote's "census," I'll be looking forward to their report.

[Name removed]

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