Ethnic groups of the United States facts for kids

Population pyramid by race/ethnicity in 2020

This map shows the most common ethnic groups in each county of the United States

Top ancestries in the United States

The United States has a racially and ethnically diverse population. At the federal level, race and ethnicity have been categorized separately. The most recent United States census recognized five racial categories (White, Black, Native American/Alaska Native, Asian, and Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander), as well as people who belong to two or more of the racial categories. The United States also recognizes the broader notion of ethnicity. The 2000 census and 2010 American Community Survey inquired about the "ancestry" of residents, while the 2020 census allowed people to enter their "origins". The Census Bureau also classified respondents as either Hispanic or Latino, identifying as an ethnicity, which comprises the minority group in the nation.

White Americans are the majority in every census-defined region (Northeast, Midwest, South, and West) and in every state except Hawaii, but contribute the highest proportion of the population in the Midwest, at 85% per the Population Estimates Program (PEP) or 83% per the American Community Survey (ACS). Non-Hispanic whites make up 79% of the Midwest's population, the highest proportion of any region. At the same time, the region with the smallest share of white Americans is the South, which comprise 53%.

Currently, 55% of the African American population lives in the South. A plurality or majority of the other official groups reside in the West. The latter region is home to 42% of Hispanic and Latino Americans, 46% of Asian Americans, 48% of American Indians and Alaska Natives, 68% of Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders, 37% of the "two or more races" population (Multiracial Americans), and 46% of those self-designated as "some other race".

Each of the five inhabited U.S. territories is fairly homogeneous, though each comprises a different primary ethnic group. American Samoa has a high percentage of Pacific Islanders, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands are mostly Asian and Pacific Islander, Puerto Rico is mostly Hispanic/Latino, and the U.S. Virgin Islands are mostly African American.

White and European Americans

White Americans of one race (or alone) from 1960 to 2020

White and European Americans are the majority of people living in the United States. White people are defined by the United States Census Bureau as those "having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa". Like all official U.S. racial categories, "White" has a "not Hispanic or Latino" and a "Hispanic or Latino" component, the latter consisting mostly of White Mexican Americans and White Cuban Americans.

As of 2019, White Americans are the majority in 49 of the 50 states (plus Puerto Rico). White Americans are not a majority in Hawaii, the District of Columbia, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. As of 2019, non-Hispanic Whites are a majority in 44 states, excluding California, Hawaii, Maryland, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, the District of Columbia, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The non-Hispanic White percentage of the 50 states and District of Columbia (60.1% in 2019) has been decreasing since the mid-20th century as a result of changes made in immigration policy, most notably the Hart–Celler Act of 1965. If current trends continue, non-Hispanic Whites will drop below 50% of the overall U.S. population by 2043. White Americans overall (non-Hispanic Whites together with White Hispanics) are projected to continue as the majority, at 73% (or 303 million out of 420 million) in 2005, from currently 77%.

Although a high proportion of the population is known to have multiple ancestries, in the 2000 U.S. census, the first with the option to choose more than one, most people still identified with one racial category. In the 2000 census, self-identified German Americans made up 17% of the U.S. population, followed by Irish Americans at 12%, as reported in the 2000 census. This makes German and Irish the largest and second-largest self-reported ancestry groups in the United States. Both groups had high rates of immigration to the U.S. beginning in the mid-19th century, triggered by the Great Famine in Ireland and the failed 1848 Revolution in Germany. English Americans and British Americans are still considered the largest ethnic group, despite the statistical errors caused by events such as the confusion in the 2000 census where many English and British Americans self-identified under the new category entry "American", thus considering themselves indigenous because their families had resided in the US for so long, or, if of mixed European ancestry, identified with a more recent and differentiated ethnic group. 7.2% of the population listed their ancestry as American on the 2000 census (see American ancestry). According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of people in the U.S. who reported American and no other ancestry increased from 12.4 million in 1990 to 20.2 million in 2000. This change in reporting represented the largest "growth" of any ethnic group in the United States during the 1990s, but it represented how people reported themselves more than growth through birth rates, for instance, and certainly did not reflect immigration.

Most French Americans are believed to be descended from colonists of Catholic New France; exiled Huguenots, much fewer in number and settling in the eastern English colonies in the late 1600s and early 1700s, needed to assimilate into the majority culture and have intermarried over generations. Some Louisiana Creoles, including the Isleños of Louisiana, and the Hispanos of the Southwest have had, in part, direct Spanish ancestry; most self-reported White Hispanics are of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, and Salvadoran origins, each of which are multi-ethnic nations. Hispanic immigration has increased from nations of Central and South America.

There are a substantial number of White Americans who are of Eastern and Southern European descent, such as Russian, Polish, Italian, and Greek Americans. Eastern Europeans immigrated to the United States more recently than Western Europeans. Arabs, Turks, Iranians, Israelis, Armenians, and other West Asians are reported as White in the United States census, as a result of a federal court case from 1909, even though most do not identify as White.

Middle Eastern and North African Americans

There are an estimated 9–10 million Middle Eastern Americans according to the U.S. Census Bureau, including both Arab and non-Arab Americans, comprising 0.6% of the total U.S. population; however, the Arab American Institute estimates a population closer to 3.6 million. U.S. census population estimates are based on responses to the ancestry question on the census, which makes it difficult to accurately count Middle Eastern Americans. Though Middle Eastern American communities can be found in each of the 50 states, the majority live in just 10 states; nearly a third live in California, New York, and Michigan. More Middle Eastern Americans live in California than any other state, with ethnic groups such as Arabs, Persians, and Armenians being a large percentage, but Middle Eastern Americans represent the highest percentage of the population of Michigan. In particular, Dearborn, Michigan has long been home to a high concentration of Middle Eastern Americans.

The U.S. Census Bureau is still finalizing the ethnic classification of MENA populations. Middle Eastern Americans are currently counted as racially White on the census, although many do not identify as such. In 2012, prompted in part by post-9/11 discrimination, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee petitioned the Department of Commerce's Minority Business Development Agency to designate the MENA populations as a minority/disadvantaged community. Following consultations with MENA organizations, the U.S. Census Bureau announced in 2014 that it would establish a new MENA ethnic category for populations from the Middle East, North Africa, and the Arab world, separate from the "white" classification that these populations had previously sought in 1909. The expert groups felt that the earlier "White" designation no longer accurately represents MENA identity, so they successfully lobbied for a distinct categorization. This process does not currently include ethnoreligious groups such as Sikhs, as the Bureau only tabulates these groups as followers of religions rather than members of ethnic groups.

According to the Arab American Institute, countries of origin for Arab Americans include Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. As of December 2015, the sampling strata for the new MENA category includes the Census Bureau's working classification of 19 MENA groups, as well as Armenian, Afghan, Iranian, Azerbaijani, and Georgian groups.

Hispanic and Latino Americans

Hispanic and Latino Americans constitute 59.8 million people, or 18.3% of the total U.S. population as of 2018. The category includes people who are of full or partial Hispanic or Latino origin. They typically have origins in the Spanish-speaking nations of Latin America, although a few also come from other places (0.2% of Hispanic and Latino Americans were born in Asia, for example). The group is heterogeneous in race and national ancestry.

The Census Bureau defines "Hispanic or Latino origin" thus:

For Census 2000, American Community Survey: People who identify with the terms "Hispanic" or "Latino" are those who classify themselves in one of the specific Hispanic or Latino categories listed on the Census 2000 or ACS questionnaire ("Mexican," "Puerto Rican," or "Cuban") as well as those who indicate that they are "other Spanish, Hispanic, or Latino". Origin can be viewed as the heritage, nationality group, lineage, or country of birth of the person, or the person's parents or ancestors, before their arrival in the United States. People who identify their origin as Spanish, Hispanic, or Latino may be of any race.

Per the 2019 American Community Survey, the leading ancestries for Hispanic Americans are Mexican (37.2 million) followed by Puerto Rican (5.83 million), Cuban (2.38 million), and Salvadoran (2.31 million). In addition, there are 3.19 million people living in Puerto Rico who are excluded from the count (see Puerto Ricans).

The Hispanic and Latino population in the United States has reached 58 million as of 2016, and has been the principal driver of United States demographic growth since 2000. Mexicans make up most of the Hispanic and Latino population at 35,758,000. The United States also has large Dominican, Guatemalan, Colombian, Honduran, Spanish, Ecuadorian, Peruvian, Salvadoran, Nicaraguan, Venezuelan, Argentine, and Panamanian populations. The population of Hispanic Americans that has received a college education is also growing; in 2015, 40% of Hispanic Americans age 25 and older have had a college experience, but in 2000, the percentage was at a low 30%. Among U.S. states, California houses the largest population of Latinos. In 2019, 15.56 million lived in California. As of 2019, the U.S. territory with the largest percentage of Hispanics/Latinos is Puerto Rico (98.9% Hispanic or Latino).

The Hispanic or Latino population is young and fast-growing, due to immigration and higher birth rates. For decades it has contributed significantly to U.S. population increases, and this is expected to continue. The Census Bureau projects that by 2050, one-quarter of the population will be Hispanic or Latino.

African Americans

African Americans, or Black Americans, are citizens of the United States with African ancestry. According to the Office of Management and Budget, the grouping includes individuals who self-identify as African American and are descended from Africans that were forcibly relocated to the United States and enslaved, as well as those who recently and voluntarily emigrated from nations in the Caribbean and sub-Saharan Africa. Both groups of people may also identify as Black or some other written-in race. However, some immigrants from the continent of Africa do not identify as Black and are not socially perceived as such, such as the Afrikaners of South Africa. According to the 2009 American Community Survey, there were 38,093,725 Black and African Americans in the United States, representing 12.4% of the population. There were 37,144,530 non-Hispanic Blacks, which comprised 12.1% of the population. According to the 2010 U.S. census, this number increased to 42 million when including multiracial African Americans, making up 13% of the total U.S. population. African Americans make up the second largest group in the United States, but the third largest group after White Americans and Hispanic or Latino Americans of any race. The majority of the population (55%) lives in the South, and there has been a decrease of African Americans in the Northeast and Midwest. The U.S. state/territory with the highest percentage of African Americans is the U.S. Virgin Islands (76% African American as of 2010).

Most African Americans are the direct descendants of captives from West Africa, who survived the slavery era within the boundaries of the present United States. The first West Africans were brought to Jamestown, Virginia in 1619. The English settlers treated these captives as indentured servants and released them after a number of years. This practice was gradually replaced by the system of race-based slavery used in the Caribbean. All the American colonies had slavery, but it was usually in the form of personal servants in the North (where 2% of the population were enslaved), and field hands in plantations in the South (where 25% were enslaved); by the beginning of the American Revolutionary War, a fifth of the total population was enslaved. During the revolution, some served in the Continental Army or Continental Navy, while others fought for the British Empire in units such as Lord Dunmore's Ethiopian Regiment. By 1804, the states north of the Mason–Dixon line had abolished slavery. However, slavery would persist in the southern states until the end of the American Civil War and the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment. Following the end of the Reconstruction Era, which saw the first African American representation in Congress, African Americans became disenfranchised and subject to Jim Crow laws, legislation that would persist until the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 due to the civil rights movement.

According to U.S. Census Bureau data, very few African immigrants self-identify as "African-American" (as "African-American" is usually referring to Blacks with deeply rooted ancestry dating back to the U.S. slave period as discussed in the previous paragraph.) On average, less than 5% of African residents self-reported as "African-American" or "Afro-American" in the 2000 U.S. census. The overwhelming majority of African immigrants (~95%) identified instead with their own respective ethnicities. Self-designation as "African-American" or "Afro-American" was highest among individuals from West Africa (4–9%), and lowest among individuals from Cape Verde, East Africa and Southern Africa (0–4%). Nonetheless, African immigrants often develop very successful professional and business working-relationships with African Americans. Immigrants from some Caribbean, Central American, and South American nations and their descendants may or may not also self-identify with the term "African American".

Recent African immigrants in the United States come from countries such as Jamaica, Haiti, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Dominican Republic, Ghana, Trinidad and Tobago, Kenya, Guyana, and Somalia.

Asian Americans

A third significant minority is the Asian American population, which comprised 19.36 million people, or 5.9% of the U.S. population, in 2019. In 2019, 6.12 million Asian Americans lived in California. As of 2019, approximately 532,300 Asians live in Hawaii, forming 37.6% of the islands' people. This makes Hawaii the state with the highest percentage of Asian Americans. Although they were historically first concentrated in Hawaii and the West Coast, Asian Americans now live across the country, living and working in large numbers in New York City, Chicago, Boston, Houston, and other major urban centers. There are also many Asians living in two Pacific U.S. territories (Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands) – as of 2010, Guam's population was 32.2% Asian, and the population of the Northern Mariana Islands was 49.9% Asian.

Filipinos have been in the territories that would become the United States since the 16th century. In 1635, an "East Indian" is listed in Jamestown, Virginia; preceding wider settlement of Indian immigrants on the East Coast in the 1790s and the West Coast in the 1800s. In 1763, Filipinos established the small settlement of Saint Malo, Louisiana, after fleeing mistreatment aboard Spanish ships. Since there were no Filipino women with them, these "Manilamen", as they were known, married Cajun and indigenous women. The first Japanese person to come to the United States, and stay any significant period of time was Nakahama Manjirō who reached the East Coast in 1841, and Joseph Heco became the first Japanese American naturalized U.S. citizen in 1858. As with the new immigration from central and eastern Europe to the East Coast from the mid-19th century on, Asians started immigrating to the United States in large numbers in the 19th century. This first major wave of immigration consisted predominantly of Chinese and Japanese laborers, but also included Korean and South Asian immigrants. Many immigrants also came during and after this period from the Philippines, which was a U.S. colony from 1898 to 1946. Exclusion laws and policies largely prohibited and curtailed Asian immigration until the 1940s. After the US changed its immigration laws during the 1940s to 1960s to make entry easier, a much larger new wave of immigration from Asia began. Today, the largest self-identified Asian American sub-groups, according to census data, are Chinese Americans, Filipino Americans, Indian Americans, Vietnamese Americans, Korean Americans, and Japanese Americans, among other groups.

Not all of Asian Americans' ancestors directly migrated from their country of origin to the US. For example, more than 270,000 people from Guyana, a South American country, reside in the U.S., but a predominant number of Guyanese people are of Indian descent.

Native Americans and Alaska Natives

Indigenous peoples of the Americas, particularly Native Americans, made up 2.9% of the population in 2020, numbering 3.7 million. An additional 5.9 million persons declared part-American Indian or Alaska Native ancestry. Levels of Native American ancestry (distinct from Native American identity) differ. The genomes of self-reported African Americans averaged to 0.8% Native American ancestry, those of European Americans averaged to 0.18%, and those of Latinos averaged to 18.0%.

The legal and official designation of who is Native American has aroused controversy by demographers, tribal nations, and government officials for many decades. Federally recognized tribes and state recognized tribes set their own membership requirements; tribal enrollment may require residency on a reservation, documented lineal descent from recognized records, such as the Dawes Rolls, and other criteria. Some tribes have adopted the use of blood quantum, requiring members to have a certain percentage. The federal government requires individuals to certify documented blood quantum of ancestry for certain federal programs, such as education benefits, available to members of recognized tribes. Census takers accept any respondent's identification. Genetic scientists estimated that more than fifteen million other Americans, including African and Hispanic Americans (specifically those of Mexican heritage), may have up to one quarter of Native ancestry.

Once thought to face extinction as a race or culture, Native Americans of numerous tribes have achieved revival of aspects of their cultures, and have fought to retain sovereignty and control of their own affairs for centuries. In recent years, many have started language programs to revive use of traditional languages, established tribally controlled colleges and other schools on their reservations, and developed gaming casinos on their sovereign land to raise revenues for economic development, as well as to promote the education and welfare of their people through health care and construction of improved housing.

Today, more than 800,000 to one million persons claim Cherokee descent in part or as full-bloods; of these, an estimated 300,000 live in California, 160,000 in Oklahoma (of which a majority are Cherokee Nation citizens), and 15,000 in North Carolina, living in ancestral homelands as members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.

The second largest tribal group is the Navajo, who call themselves Diné and live on a 16‑million-acre Indian reservation covering northeast Arizona, northwest New Mexico, and southeast Utah. It is home to half of the 450,000 members of the Navajo Nation. The third largest group are the Lakota (Sioux) Nation, with distinct federally recognized tribes located in the states of Minnesota, Nebraska, Montana, Wyoming; and North and South Dakota.

Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders Americans

Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders numbered approximately 656,400 in 2019, or 0.2% of the population. Additionally, nearly as many individuals identify themselves as having partial Native Hawaiian ancestry, for a total of 829,949 people of full or part Native Hawaiian ancestry. This group constitutes the smallest minority in the United States. More than half identify as "full-blooded", but historically most Native Hawaiians on the island chain of Hawaii are believed to have some Asian and European ancestry.

Some demographers believe that by 2025, the last full-blooded Native Hawaiian will die off, leaving a culturally distinct but racially mixed population. However, throughout Hawaii, they are working to preserve and assert adaptation of Native Hawaiian customs and the Hawaiian language by establishing cultural schools solely for legally Native Hawaiian students and more.

There are significant Pacific Islander populations living in three Pacific U.S. territories (American Samoa, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands). As of 2010, American Samoa's population was 92.6% Pacific Islander (mostly Samoan), Guam's population was 49.3% Pacific Islander (mostly Chamorro), and the population of the Northern Mariana Islands was 34.9% Pacific Islander. Out of all U.S. states/territories, American Samoa has the highest percentage of Pacific Islanders.

Two or more races

Self-identified multiracial Americans numbered 7.0 million in 2008, or 2.3% of the population. They have identified as any combination of races (White, Black or African American, Asian, American Indian or Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander, and "some other race") and ethnicities. The U.S. has a growing multiracial identity movement.

While the colonies and southern states protected White fathers by making all children born to slave mothers be classified as slaves, regardless of paternity, they also banned miscegenation or interracial marriage, most notably between Whites and Blacks. However, this did little to stop interracial relationships. Demographers state that, due to new waves of immigration, the American people through the early 20th century were mostly multi-ethnic descendants of various immigrant nationalities, who maintained cultural distinctiveness until, over time, assimilation, migration and integration took place. The civil rights movement through the 20th century gained passage of important legislation to enforce constitutional rights of minorities, including multiracial Americans.

The multiracial population that is part White is the largest percentage of the multiracial population. As of the 2000 census, 7,015,017 people self-identified as White/American Indian and Alaskan Native, 737,492 as White/Black, 727,197 as White/Asian, and 125,628 as White/Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander.

Ancestry

The ancestry of the people of the United States is widely varied and includes descendants of populations from around the world. In addition to its variation, the ancestry of people in the United States is also marked by varying amounts of intermarriage between ethnic and racial groups.

While some Americans can trace their ancestry back to a single ethnic group or population in Europe, Africa, or Asia, these are often first, second and third-generation Americans. Generally, the degree of mixed heritage increases the longer people's ancestors have lived in the United States (see melting pot). There are several means available to discover the ancestry of the people living in the United States, including genealogy, genetics, oral and written history, and analysis of Federal Population Census schedules; in practice, only few of these have been used for a larger part of the population.

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  The plurality (not majority) ethnic background in each county in the US in 2000:
  

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  The largest ethnic backgrounds in each county in the U.S. in 2016.

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  Plurality ancestry in each state, ranging from 11.8% (FL) to 43.9 % (ND).      German      American      Mexican      Irish      African      Italian      English      Japanese      Puerto Rican

See also

In Spanish: Etnografía de los Estados Unidos para niños