United States of America

The United States has one of the largest Sikh communities outside South Asia, but nobody has a firm count, because the Census Bureau does not ask about religion. Pew Research's 2012 estimate was about 200,000 Sikhs of all ages, about 140,000 of them adults, which it called a rough figure and more likely a floor than a ceiling. Other estimates run from 78,000 adults (a 2008 survey) to 280,000 (the World Religion Database), and Pew noted that the Sikh Coalition's figure of more than 500,000 cites no source. A 2010 study counted 246 Sikh congregations.

Key moments

• September 1907: in Bellingham, Washington, a mob of 500 white men rounded up South Asian workers, mostly Sikh mill hands, from their homes and workplaces. Over 100 took refuge in the city hall basement, and within ten days the whole South Asian community had left. Only five attackers were arrested, and they were freed when no witness came forward.
• 1911 and 1912: the first Sikh congregational prayer in the country was held on 1 November 1911 at Nand Singh's camp near Stockton. The Pacific Coast Khalsa Diwan Society founded the Stockton gurdwara in 1912, which the UC Davis archive calls the first Sikh house of worship in the United States. It became the centre of the Ghadar Party's activity.
• 1956: Dalip Singh Saund, born in Amritsar, won election to the House of Representatives from California and served three terms.
• 5 August 2012: six worshippers were killed at the gurdwara in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, by a 40-year-old gunman.
• 13 February 2026: Nikhil Gupta pleaded guilty in a Manhattan federal court to murder-for-hire, conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire and conspiracy to commit money laundering, over a plot to kill Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, whom Al Jazeera describes as a Sikh separatist with US and Canadian citizenship. Prosecutors allege that an Indian intelligence officer, Vikash Yadav, who remains at large, directed the plot. Indian officials deny involvement, saying such an operation would be against government policy.

The settlements: the old farming and worshipping centres are in California, at Stockton, Yuba City and San Jose, each described on its own page. Oak Creek in Wisconsin is the best-known place of loss.

What it means today: the American Panth is large enough to hold its own civil rights fights, to be targeted for its faith, and to be pulled into the politics of Punjab. How many Sikhs live there is itself unsettled, which is why this page gives the estimates and who made them.