 About 2000–3000 Chinese miners were in the mining areas of Montana by 1870, and 2500 in 1890.However, public opinion grew increasingly negative toward them in the 1890s, and nearly half of the state's Asian population left the state by 1900.Today, the Missoula area has a large Hmong population and the nearly 3,000 Montanans who claim Filipino ancestry are the largest Asian-American group in the state.