Study: Boom expands Amish to 28 states; Pa. is new No. 1

By Mark Scolforo

Associated Press

HARRISBURG - The search by the booming North American population of Amish for affordable, fertile farmland has produced settlements in 28 states and Ontario - and has even led parties to scout for suitable properties in Alaska and Mexico.

A new study estimates the number of Amish has increased 10 percent in just the last two years, from about 227,000 to 249,000, and has doubled since 1992. Nearly all Amish descended from a group of about 5,000 in the early 20th century.

The study, by the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College, found that about two-thirds of Amish still live in the traditional strongholds of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana, but that they continue to spread west, particularly into the Midwestern corn belt.

Farmland in Lancaster County can cost $15,000 an acre, compared with $2,000 or $3,000 elsewhere.

"They are sort of challenging some of the mainstream assumptions about progress and how you achieve the good life and happiness," said Elizabethtown professor Don Kraybill, the study's director. "They're not merely surviving. They're thriving, and growing at this very rapid rate."

The highest rates of growth in the last year were in New York (19 percent), Minnesota (9 percent), Missouri (8 percent), and Wisconsin and Illinois (both 7 percent). High-growth areas in the last five years also include Kentucky, Kansas, and Iowa.

According to the study, Pennsylvania has passed Ohio as the state with the largest Amish population, in part because the authors employed a more precise method to estimate the number, one that takes into account the different average size of an Amish district, or congregation, depending on the state.

The latest state to get an Amish settlement is South Dakota, after at least six families bought several farms near Tripp in the southeastern part of the state. They have planted forage for their cows, built barns, and established a weekly bake sale.

The study focused on all Amish groups that use horse-and-buggy transportation, so it excluded such automobile-driving groups as the Beachy Amish and Mennonites.

The growth is almost entirely due to the Amish birthrate; many Amish families have five or more children.

About half the Amish are younger than 18, meaning the community tends to focus much of its energy on young people and schools, Kraybill said.