The majority of the 295 million American people currently living in the United States descend from European immigrants who have arrived since the establishment of the first colonies. Major components of the European segment of the United States population are descended from immigrants from Germany (15.2 percent), Ireland (10.8 percent), England (8.7 percent), Italy (5.6 percent), Scandinavia (3.7 percent) and Poland (3.2 percent) with many immigrants also coming from Slavic countries. Other significant european immigrant populations came from eastern and southern Europe and French Canada; few immigrants came directly from France. A large number of Americans (12.9 percent) are descended from African immigrants, the majority of whom were slaves. These numbers, however, are inaccurate as many citizens listed themselves as "American" on the census (7.2 percent).
Ancestry maps
- Note on the images: These maps are self-generated by Wikipedia user Stevey7788 at the U.S. Census Bureau's American Factfinder site ([1]). "West Indian," "Arab," and "Sub-saharan African" ancestries are not listed. These maps focus only on the European ancestries of white or Caucasian Americans.
References
See also