400,000 Amish Are Not Being Forced Out. What Is Happening Is Stranger.

The Amish Are Moving in America. Not for the Reason You Heard. A claim watched about four million times says four hundred thousand Amish are being forced out of Pennsylvania. There are only four hundred and twenty-one thousand Amish in all of North America, so the claim is that nearly every Amish person alive is leaving one state. Lancaster County has just recorded the highest Amish population in its history. Pennsylvania has added more new congregations than any other state in America. But Amish families really are moving, in small numbers, and the real reason is better than the loud one. Along the way: why an Amish congregation can never grow past forty households, why only 154 outsiders have joined in a century, and four things most Americans believe about the Amish that are wrong. CHAPTERS 00:00 The claim, and the number it was lifted from 01:34 What the count actually says 03:01 Forty-three new settlements in a single year 04:22 The Amish have no church buildings 05:13 No headquarters, nobody to issue a denial 06:05 Is Lancaster County emptying? 06:58 Is Pennsylvania emptying? 09:00 Forced by whom? 09:53 The one ordinance anyone can point to 10:58 Do the Amish pay taxes? 12:28 What the Young Center's director said 13:08 Nine in ten farmed. Now about a third. 13:54 Six children each, and 85 percent stay 14:50 Only 154 outsiders joined in a century 16:14 The retention twist nobody knows 17:26 What an acre of Lancaster really costs 21:54 Why Nappanee men build motor homes 23:48 Missouri took more Amish than any state 24:17 The real reason: no zoning 26:03 Alabama, and the settlement that died in 1924 28:54 The 270 settlements that failed since 1730 32:31 Four more myths, corrected 34:30 The detail nobody checked QUESTIONS THIS VIDEO ANSWERS How many Amish are there in America? Are the Amish leaving Pennsylvania? Where are the Amish moving to, and why? Do the Amish pay taxes? What is rumspringa really? Why is the Amish population growing so fast? How many Amish still farm? Can you join the Amish? THE NUMBERS, AND WHERE EACH ONE CAME FROM Every figure here is sourced in the video — to the Young Center at Elizabethtown College, the Department of Agriculture, a named researcher or a named local paper. The count. 421,200 Amish as of June, in 3,285 church districts and 728 settlements, across 33 states, 3 Canadian provinces, and now Mexico and Bolivia. Nearly 60 percent live in just three states: Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana. Forty-three new settlements in one year, against a nine-year average of about twenty. Lancaster. 43,640 in 2024. 44,765 in 2025. 45,575 this year, across 301 church districts — the highest ever, and still the largest Amish settlement in the world. Pennsylvania. 74,250 in 2017. 96,535 today. Thirty percent growth in nine years, and 189 new church districts — more than Ohio's 159, more than Indiana's 131, more than any state in the country. Growth. Six point one births per woman. Roughly 85 percent of Amish children stay and are baptized — measured with a life table, 84.5 percent are still in the church at forty. The population doubles about every twenty years. And 154 adults raised outside the Amish are documented as having joined in roughly a century. Land. The Department of Agriculture values Lancaster land and buildings at $21,633 an acre, from 2022 — not a sale price. Appraisers, lenders and the county's agriculture council put real ground at $40,000 to $50,000, with sales above $60,000. Pennsylvania farmland averages about $8,490 an acre. The United States, about $4,350. Migration. Missouri gained 21 new settlements between 2015 and 2025, more than any state — 27 over the last nine years. Missouri farmland runs about $5,000 an acre, and most Missouri counties have no zoning or building codes at all. WHAT YOU WILL LEARN Why an Amish congregation splits in two instead of growing. Why there is no Amish headquarters or head bishop, and what that meant here. Why Pennsylvania Dutch has nothing to do with the Netherlands. What rumspringa actually is. Why the Amish pay every tax but one. Why 270 Amish settlements have failed since the 1730s. And why the strictest communities keep 97 percent of their children while the most modern keep closer to 60. TELL ME YOURS Which of the four myths did you believe? I had two of them wrong before I started reading. And if a new Amish settlement has started near you, say so in the comments. #Amish #AmishCommunity #LancasterCounty #Pennsylvania #PennsylvaniaDutch #AmishLife #AmishHistory #OldOrderAmish #Genealogy #FamilyHistory #Ancestry #AmericanHistory #AmericanBloodlines #Anabaptist #Rumspringa