America’s Amish EXPLOSION: Why the buggy-riding population that doesn’t use technology has DOUBLED in size since 2000 and could hit one million this century

America’s low-tech Amish sect has doubled in size since 2000 and will reach 1 million members this century as it expands far beyond the heart of Pennsylvania. research shows.

Steven Nolt, an expert on the Amish, told DailyMail.com that the US population of 378,000 was doubling every 20 years, thanks to families with many children who were the most likely to cling to the faith.

Amish communities have spread beyond their traditional areas of Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana, with new outposts as far away as Maine, Florida, New Mexico, Texas and Idaho, Nolt said.

The expansion underscores the crunch of a group that eschews technology to focus on family time, even as modern America struggles with cellphones and social media that can harm children’s mental health.

Yet the group remains dogged by revelations from runaways about an ultra-conservative Christian lifestyle, including most recently stripper-turned-adherent Naomi Swartzentruber, 43.

“We can expect 1 million Amish well before the end of the century,” Nolt, professor of history and Anabaptist studies and director of the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College, told DailyMail.com.

He foresaw further Amish expansion across rural parts of the Mountain West and Southeast.

“There will be more Amish living in more places, with new neighbors,” he said.

‘That does bring with it the possibility of possible misunderstandings. But also the possibility of keeping some rural areas alive and populated, despite the otherwise predicted depopulation of the countryside over the next fifty years.’

The Amish, a Christian sect that migrated to the U.S. from Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries, generally refuse to drive cars, use computers or connect to a public electricity supply.

They speak a German dialect and travel through their mostly rural villages in horse-drawn buggies.

At a time when other ethnic and religious groups fear dilution through intermarriage, the Amish have increased their numbers by marrying within the group and educating their children in Amish schools.

Their population growth has accelerated over the past two decades because they have an average of five or six children per family, have improved their retention of their young, and are living longer, healthier lives.

A tenth of Amish families in inland Pennsylvania have 10 or more children – far above the 1.9 children of the average American family.

Birth control and abortion are frowned upon.

Unlike other religious groups, the Amish do not convert, so population growth comes from children.

According to Nolt, nearly 90 percent of Amish children remain within the church.

‘The 10 to 15 percent who do not participate rarely walk away; they just never join – perhaps they drift away, or simply choose a different path in life within the same geographic community as their family,” he said.

The group’s estimated North American population last year was 384,290, up 116 percent from 2000.

That includes 6,100 in Canada.

The number of Amish has more than doubled in ten states, and the number of Amish communities in the United States has increased by 82 percent.

There are now Amish communities in 32 US states.

New outposts often spring up because members see a deal for farmland — the group’s economic mainstay — and are willing to move.

They can grow quickly thanks to strong community ties.

Since 2000, settlements have sprung up in six new states: Colorado, Nebraska, New Mexico, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming.

At the same time, Minnesota’s Amish population has increased by 230 percent.

In New York, the number of people has more than quadrupled, from 4,505 to about 21,230 people.

Although agriculture is a mainstay, many members work in construction, woodworking, blacksmithing or start small businesses.

A community that started in 2013 in Brownington, Vermont – 30 minutes from the Canadian border – is now reportedly thriving.

But the group’s traditional ways are not loved by everyone.

Their clothing is characterized by straw hats and suspenders for men and bonnets and long dresses for women.

They largely avoid marrying outside their community because they know it would mean being kicked out of the church.

Politically, the Amish lean heavily Republican.

Members have been spotted at Donald Trump rallies in Pennsylvania, some even decorating their buggies with campaign banners.

Swartzentruber recently lifted the lid on a community she fled at the age of 17.

The 43-year-old grew up in one of the largest and most conservative Amish subgroups, known as the Swartzentrubers.

She had to follow strict rules about how she dressed and who she could talk to.

When she was five, she was expected to wake up at 5 a.m. to help on the farm in Michigan.

By the time she was 14, school was no longer considered a priority and instead she left her education to cook, clean and do household chores full-time.

“We got up at dawn and worked all day until the sun went down,” she said.

‘Women would be expected to do the cooking, cleaning and washing of clothes, while men would do all the agricultural work.’

However, her life as a housewife became too mundane for her and she wished she could get a taste of the world outside the settlement.

“There wasn’t much time to play, and we had to dress modestly,” she said.

‘When I asked my parents why we had to dress and work, they said it was ‘just our way’.

Soon, she began rebelling in small ways by putting on lingerie under her dresses, listening to the radio through her neighbor’s window, and even secretly dating non-Amish boys, who were known as ” English’ men.

Naomi explained: ‘I started to feel really rebellious. I decided I wanted to get a job, find an English boy and wear whatever I wanted.”