Indian Community • United States
Where Marathi Families Live in America
107,300 Marathi speakers nationwide • Mandals in every major metro • Ganeshotsav is the measure
There are 107,300 Marathi speakers in the United States (ACS 2017–2021 detailed languages). Marathi America is smaller than Telugu or Gujarati but unusually well organised — nearly every major metro has a Marathi Mandal, several date back to the 1960s and 1970s, and they are federated nationally under BMM. For choosing a city, the mandal tells you more than any population figure.
Last updated: August 2026 • All Indian community guides →
The Short Answer
Every metro in our guides has an established Marathi Mandal, so the question is not whether you will find a community — it is which one fits. Chicago has the oldest, founded 1969. Seattle runs the largest Ganeshotsav, drawing more than 20,000 people, and hosts the BMM national convention in 2026. New Jersey has the largest membership of the older east-coast mandals and hosted the 2022 convention.
Dallas-Fort Worth and the Bay Area are where the community is growing fastest, tracking tech employment. Washington DC and Los Angeles both have mandals dating to around 1975 with several hundred member families each.
Marathi Mandals, City by City
For a community this size, institutional depth is a better guide than population counts — and for reasons explained in the next section, reliable Marathi population counts are not published at metro level anyway. This is what each metro actually offers.
| Metro | Mandal & founded | Scale and notes | State income tax |
|---|---|---|---|
| The oldest institutions | |||
| Chicago | MMC — 1969 | The oldest Marathi mandal in North America, with more than fifty years of continuous Ganeshotsav. | Yes |
| Washington DC | MKM — 1975 | Over 500 member families, centred on the Herndon–Centreville–Chantilly corridor. | Yes |
| Los Angeles | MMLA — c.1975 | Full BMM member with five Marathi Shala locations across Southern California. | Yes |
| New Jersey | Marathi Vishwa — 1978 | 845+ member families. Hosted the BMM national convention in 2022. | Yes |
| Bay Area | MMBA — 1980 | Ganesh visarjan held at the Pacific Ocean — one of the largest on the West Coast. | Yes |
| Established and growing | |||
| Dallas-Fort Worth | DFWMM — 1986 | 500+ member families, centred on Frisco and the northern suburbs. The fastest-growing of the older mandals. | None |
| Atlanta | MMA — 1986 | Atlanta Marathi Shala teaches 280 students; more than thirty years of Ganeshotsav. | Yes |
| Houston | HMM | 500+ member families around Fort Bend and Sugar Land, with a Vitthal Rukmini temple. | None |
| Newer, but punching above their size | |||
| Seattle | SMM — 580 members | Ganesh Festival draws more than 20,000 attendees — the largest in the country. Hosts the BMM national convention in 2026. | None |
| Austin | AMM — 2006 | Centred on Round Rock and the northern tech corridor. | None |
About the Data: Why There Is No Metro Population Table
On our other national pages we publish a metro-by-metro speaker count. We are not doing that here, and the reason is worth explaining.
The Census publishes a specific Marathi figure only at national level: 107,300 speakers. At metro level, Marathi is folded into a category called “Nepali, Marathi, or other Indic languages” — and nationally, Nepali alone has 198,300 speakers, nearly double Marathi. That bucket totals 482,962 nationally, of which Marathi is only about 22%.
Nepali and Marathi settlement patterns are completely different. Nepali-speaking populations in America are heavily shaped by refugee resettlement, concentrated in places like Ohio, Pennsylvania and mid-sized Texas cities. Marathi settlement follows tech and pharmaceutical employment. Publishing that combined figure as a Marathi metro ranking would produce a table that looks authoritative and misleads on every row.
Some of our city guides quote the combined figure and label it as “Indic speakers” — that labelling is accurate, and those numbers should be read the same cautious way. Where a metro has a more specific local estimate, the city guide uses it.
The mandal table above is built from organisation founding dates, membership figures and event attendance, all drawn from our city guides and organisation sources. For a community of this size it is the more honest guide, and probably the more useful one.
Which City Fits Your Situation
Ganeshotsav is the thing you would miss most
Seattle. More than 20,000 attendees makes it the largest Marathi festival in the country, and the metro hosts the BMM national convention in 2026. Bay Area is the other standout, with visarjan at the Pacific Ocean.
You want your children in Marathi Shala
Los Angeles runs five Marathi Shala locations across Southern California, and Atlanta’s teaches 280 students. Both indicate a community investing in the second generation rather than just running festivals.
You are in pharma or biotech
New Jersey. Marathi Vishwa has 845+ member families, the largest of the established east-coast mandals, and the pharmaceutical corridor is the main employer.
You are in tech and want no state income tax
Dallas-Fort Worth or Seattle. DFWMM has 500+ member families concentrated around Frisco; Seattle combines the largest Ganeshotsav in the country with Amazon and Microsoft employment.
You want the deepest institutional history
Chicago. MMC was founded in 1969 — the oldest Marathi mandal in North America and older than most Indian-American organisations of any community.
BMM, Ganeshotsav and Community Life
BMM — Brihan Maharashtra Mandal of North America
The national federation linking local mandals. Its convention rotates between host cities — New Jersey in 2022, Seattle in 2026 — and is the largest gathering of Marathi people outside India. Because mandals are federated, moving cities generally means transferring into an existing network rather than starting over.
Ganeshotsav is the measure
Ganesh Chaturthi, and the visarjan that closes it, is the defining Marathi event. It requires organisation, a venue, permits for the procession and enough families to sustain ten days of programming. Attendance is the single most reliable indicator of a metro’s Marathi community: Seattle’s 20,000+ is the national high, and Atlanta’s thirty-year run indicates deep continuity.
Marathi Shala
Weekend Marathi schools are widespread relative to community size. Los Angeles runs five locations and Atlanta teaches 280 students — substantial numbers for a community of roughly 107,000 nationally.
Temples are shared, mandals are not
Unlike Gujarati or Malayali families, Marathi families generally do not have community-specific temples — they attend pan-Indian Hindu temples. Houston’s Vitthal Rukmini temple is a notable exception. The mandal, not the temple, is the community institution, which is why the table above is organised around it.
Common Questions
How many Marathi speakers are there in the United States?
107,300, according to the Census Bureau’s detailed languages tabulation covering 2017–2021 and released in June 2025. That is the most specific published figure.
Which US city has the largest Marathi community?
The Census does not publish Marathi separately at metro level, so there is no reliable population ranking. By institutional measures, New Jersey has the largest membership among older mandals at 845+ families, Seattle runs the largest Ganeshotsav at over 20,000 attendees, and Chicago has the oldest mandal, founded 1969.
Why can’t you give metro population figures for Marathi?
At metro level the Census groups Marathi into a category called “Nepali, Marathi, or other Indic languages”. Nepali alone has 198,300 speakers nationally against Marathi’s 107,300, and the two communities settle in completely different places. Publishing that combined figure as a Marathi ranking would be misleading, so we use institutional data instead.
What is BMM?
Brihan Maharashtra Mandal of North America, the national federation of local Marathi mandals. Its convention rotates between host cities — New Jersey hosted in 2022, Seattle hosts in 2026 — and is the largest Marathi gathering outside India.
Where is the largest Ganeshotsav in America?
Seattle, with more than 20,000 attendees. The Bay Area’s visarjan at the Pacific Ocean is the other standout, and Atlanta has run Ganeshotsav for more than thirty years.
Where is the oldest Marathi organisation in America?
Chicago. Maharashtra Mandal Chicago was founded in 1969, making it the oldest Marathi mandal in North America.
Marathi City Guides
Each guide covers neighbourhoods, the local mandal, Ganeshotsav, Marathi Shala, restaurants, grocery stores and cost of living for that specific metro.
- Marathi in Chicago — MMC, the oldest mandal in North America
- Marathi in New Jersey — Marathi Vishwa and the pharma corridor
- Marathi in Seattle — the largest Ganeshotsav in the country
- Marathi in the Bay Area — MMBA and Pacific Ocean visarjan
- Marathi in Dallas-Fort Worth — DFWMM and the Frisco corridor
- Marathi in Washington DC — MKM and Northern Virginia
- Marathi in Los Angeles — MMLA and five Marathi Shala locations
- Marathi in Atlanta — MMA and thirty years of Ganeshotsav
- Marathi in Houston — HMM, Sugar Land and the Vitthal Rukmini temple
- Marathi in Austin — Round Rock and the tech corridor
Data Sources
National Marathi figure: U.S. Census Bureau, Detailed Languages Spoken at Home, ACS 2017–2021, released June 2025. We deliberately do not publish metro-level Marathi population figures: the ACS groups Marathi with Nepali and other Indic languages at metro level, and Nepali alone (198,300 nationally) outnumbers Marathi (107,300), so the combined figure is not a valid proxy. Mandal founding dates, membership figures and event attendance are drawn from organisation sources and our individual city guides, and are organisation-reported rather than Census data. Read our full research methodology →