European Americans

European Americans
Largest white alone or in any combination group by county in the 2020 United States census.
Total population
133 million European-diaspora Americans
41% of total U.S. population (2017)[1][a]
(as opposed to 235.4 million Americans identifying as White in combination with other races and 204.3 million self-identifying as white)[2]
61.6% of the total U.S. population (2020)
Regions with significant populations
Contiguous United States and Alaska
smaller populations in Hawaii and the territories
Languages
Predominantly English, but also other languages of Europe
Religion
Predominantly Christianity (Mainly Protestantism and Roman Catholicism);
Minority religions: Judaism, Mormonism, Islam, Neo-Paganism, Scientology, Irreligion, Atheism

European Americans are Americans who trace full ancestry to Europe.[3][4] This term includes people who are descended from the first European settlers in the United States as well as people who are descended from more recent European arrivals. European Americans have been the largest panethnic group in the United States since about the 17th century.

The Spaniards are thought to be the first Europeans to establish a continuous presence in what is now the contiguous United States, with Martín de Argüelles (b. 1566) in St. Augustine, then a part of Spanish Florida,[5][6] and the Russians were the first Europeans to settle in Alaska, establishing Russian America. The first English child born in the Americas was Virginia Dare, born August 18, 1587. She was born in Roanoke Colony, located in present-day North Carolina, which was the first attempt, made by Queen Elizabeth I, to establish a permanent English settlement in North America.

In the 2020 United States census, English Americans (46.5 million), German Americans (45 million), Irish Americans (38.6 million), Italian Americans (16.8 million) and Polish Americans (8.6 million) were the five largest self-reported European ancestry groups in the United States.[7] However, the number of people with British ancestry is considered to be significantly under-counted, as many people in that demographic tend to identify themselves simply as Americans (20,151,829 or 7.2%).[8][9][10][11] The same applies to Americans of Spanish ancestry, as many people in that demographic tend to identify themselves as Hispanic and Latino Americans (58,846,134 or 16.6%), even though they carry a mean of 65.1% European genetic ancestry, mainly from Spain.[12]

An increasing amount of people ignored the ancestry question altogether or chose no specific ancestral group such as "American or United States". In the 2000 census this represented over 56.1 million or 19.9% of the United States population, an increase from 26.2 million (10.5%) in 1990 and 38.2 million (16.9%) in 1980 and are specified as "unclassified" and "not reported".[13][14]

  1. ^ "European Immigrants in the United States". Migration Policy Institute. August 2018.
  2. ^ "Race and Ethnicity in the United States: 2010 Census and 2020 Census". US Census Bureau. August 12, 2021. Retrieved November 5, 2023.
  3. ^ "Euro-American". Merriam Webster Dictionary. Merriam-Webster, Incorporated. Retrieved March 13, 2014.
  4. ^ James B. Minahan (March 14, 2013). "Americans of European descent". Ethnic Groups of the Americas: An Encyclopedia. pp. 17–18. ISBN 9781610691642.
  5. ^ "A Spanish Expedition Established St. Augustine in Florida". Library of Congress. Retrieved March 27, 2009.
  6. ^ Figueredo, D. H. (2007). Latino Chronology. ISBN 9780313341540. Retrieved February 4, 2015.
  7. ^ "Census Bureau Releases 2020 Census Population for More Than 200 New Detailed Race and Ethnicity Groups". September 21, 2023. Retrieved October 30, 2023.
  8. ^ Pulera, Dominic J. "Sharing the Dream: White Males in a Multicultural America". Retrieved October 30, 2023.
  9. ^ Farley, Reynolds (1991). "The New Census Question about Ancestry: What Did It Tell Us?". Demography. 28 (3): 411–29. doi:10.2307/2061465. JSTOR 2061465. PMID 1936376. S2CID 41503995.
  10. ^ Stanley Lieberson and Lawrence Santi, "The Use of Nativity Data to Estimate Ethnic Characteristics and Patterns", Social Science Research, Vol. 14, No. 1 (1985), pp. 44-6.
  11. ^ Stanley Lieberson and Mary C. Waters, "Ethnic Groups in Flux: The Changing Ethnic Responses of American Whites", Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 487, No. 79 (September 1986), pp. 82–86.
  12. ^ Bryc, Katarzyna; Durand, Eric Y.; Macpherson, J. Michael; Reich, David; Mountain, Joanna L. (2015). "The Genetic Ancestry of African Americans, Latinos, and European Americans across the United States". The American Journal of Human Genetics. 96 (1): 37–53. doi:10.1016/j.ajhg.2014.11.010. ISSN 0002-9297. PMC 4289685. PMID 25529636.
  13. ^ "1980 Census of Population: Ancestry of the population by state: 1980" (PDF). United States Census Bureau. Retrieved November 5, 2023.
  14. ^ "Ancestry: 2000 Census in Brief" (PDF). United States Census Bureau. Retrieved November 5, 2023.


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