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-technology Amish sect has doubled in size since 2000 and will hit 1 million members this century as it spreads far beyond its Pennsylvania heartland, new research shows.

Steven Nolt, an expert on the Amish, told DailyMail.com that its 378,000-strong US population was doubling every 20 years, thanks to families with lots of children who most often stick to the faith.

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

The expansion underscores the tightness of a group that eschews technology to focus on family time, even as modern America grapples with cell phones and social media that may harm kids' mental health.

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

'We can anticipate 1 million Amish well before the end of the century,' Nolt, a history and Anabaptist studies professor 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 pose the possibility of potential misunderstanding. But also the possibility of keeping some rural areas alive and populated in the face of otherwise predicted rural depopulation in the next 50 years.'

The Amish, a Christian sect that migrated to the US from Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries, typically 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 some other ethnic and religious groups fear dilution through mixed marriages, the Amish have boosted their numbers by marrying within the group and teaching their kids at Amish-only schools.

Their population growth rate has accelerated in the past 20 years because they have an average of five or six children per family, and have done a better job of retaining their young people, and are having longer, healthier lives. 

A tenth of Amish families in the Pennsylvania heartland have 10 or more children — far above the 1.9 children of the average US family.

Birth control and abortion are frowned upon.

Unlike other religious groups, the Amish don't convert, so population growth comes from children.

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

'The 10-15 percent who don't join rarely run away; they just never join — maybe drift away, or simply choose a different life path within the same geographic community as their family,' he said.

The group's estimated North American population was 384,290 last year, a 116 percent jump from 2000.

That includes 6,100 in Canada.

Amish numbers more than doubled in 10 states, and there was an 82 percent increase in the number of Amish communities throughout the US.

There are now Amish communities in 32 US states.

New outposts often spring up because members spot a deal for farmland — the economic mainstay of the group — and are willing to relocate.

They can grow fast thanks to strong community ties.

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

At the same time, Minnesota's Amish population has surged by 230 percent.

In New York it has more than quadrupled, growing from 4,505 to some 21,230 people.

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

A community that started in Brownington, Vermont — 30 minutes from the Canadian border — in 2013, is said to be thriving now.

But the group's traditional ways are not beloved by all.

Their dress 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 doing so would mean being kicked out of the church.

Politically, the Amish lean heavily Republican.

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

Swartzentruber recently lifted the lid on life inside a community that she fled when she was 17.

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

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

At the age of five, she was expected to wake up at 5am 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 behind to cook, clean, and do household chores full-time.

'We'd get up at dawn and work all day until the sun went down,' she said.

'Women would be expected to do the cooking, cleaning and washing the clothes — while men would do all the farming.'

However, her homemaker life became too mundane for her, and she found herself wishing she could have a taste of the world outside the settlement.

'There wasn't much time for 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 enough, she began rebelling in small ways by donning lingerie under her gowns, 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 feeling really rebellious — I decided I wanted to get a job, find an English boy, and wear whatever I want.'