Ethnic composition of the USA: description, features and interesting facts

The ethnic composition of the United States is striking in its diversity. Representatives of different nationalities live in the territory of the United States of America - beginning with the Aleuts, ending with the Malagasy. But with the full composition will help understand the statistics, which includes the data as a percentage.

Native people

The main population of the state are US Americans. If you believe the statistics, then out of all ~ 325 million inhabitants, only 61% of citizens are such.

It is interesting that citizenship determines the identity of US Americans. Precisely because of their religious, ethnic and racial composition, they are very heterogeneous. You should also know that in this state the term "Native Americans" is used. These are the Eskimos and Indians.

One can not help but mention the phrase spoken by Arthur Schlesinger, a liberal politician and social critic of the 20th and 21st centuries. He said that the American people are a nation not based on ethnic communities. People who decided to become part of the state made their own choice. However, a person, having obtained the citizenship of this country, still remains a representative of his people. Therefore, the ethnic composition of the United States and includes only ~ 61% of Americans.

German group

To begin it is necessary from the people concerning it. The most numerous are African Americans. Speaking about the ethnic composition of the United States, they occupy about 13%, which, by the way, are included in the above 61%.

Next, the Germans are numerous in numbers. If you believe the latest statistics for 2015, then they live in America more than 2%. Still there are Pennsylvanian Germans who are descendants of settlers from the 17th and 18th centuries from South and West Germany to Pennsylvania and the United States. They are in America only 0.07% (about 235 000 people).

Russian Germans are even smaller, about 20 500 citizens. This is 0.01%, which also includes statistics on the ethnic composition of the United States.

Even more or less numerous group are Jews, living in the amount of ~ 1,7% (5,200,000 people).

Also in the population are Swedes, Norwegians, Dutch, Scots, Flemish, Barbados, Menz, Alsatians, Luxemburgers and about two dozen other nations representing the German group. The least of all in the US lives Faroese - only 900 people. The ratio of the remaining peoples ranges from 0.01% to 0.39%.

Romance group

It can not be ignored by considering the ethnic composition of the US population, because more than one fifth of the population of America is exactly the representatives of the Romance group.

Most of all Mexicans. About 11% of them live on the territory of the state. The next most numerous are the Italians, they are 3%. Even in America, there are a lot of Puerto Ricans (1.61%), Cubans (0.64%) and Salvadorans (0.51%).

It is especially interesting to consider the ethnic composition of the United States by state. Few people know, but about 75% of all Cuban immigrants live in the state of Florida. However, this is logical. After all, Cuba from Miami, one of the largest cities in the state, shares 150 km.

However, it is worth returning to the language group. The smallest of its representatives is the people of Romansh. In the US, they are home to about 1,500 people. The number of other representatives of the group varies from 0.01% to 0.47%.

Slavs

Representatives of our language group in America also live quite a lot. This confirms the ethnic composition of the United States as a percentage. About 3.2% of the Slavs live in the territory of this state. That is more than 10 105 000 people.

Most of all Poles in America. In percent they make up about 1.9% of the population. Then the Russians come in numbers. They are about 0.5% in the US - about 1,400,000. Ukrainians are more than two times less (0.22%).

Also in the Slavic group are Czechs, Slovaks, Croats, Slovenes, Serbs, Macedonians, Bulgarians, Byelorussians, Bosnians, Carpathian Ruthenians, Montenegrins and luzhichans. The last in the US lives the least - about 2,500 people, to be more precise. The number of other representatives varies from 0.01% to 0.19%.

Celtic and Indo-Aryan groups

Now you can go to smaller ethnic categories. The Celtic language group includes only four people. They are Irish, Welsh, Northern Irish and Bretons. All of them in total make up 0.9% of the American population. That is, they are less than three million.

The Indo-Aryan group includes more peoples, but in percentage terms it is inferior to the Celtic one. Since its representatives are only 0.8% of the American population. And this is about 2.55 million people. But of the 22 nations of this group, the most numerous are the Hindustans. That is, people from North India. They are about 0.22% (about 642 000 people).

Other groups

In the US, besides all the above-mentioned peoples, the Greeks also live. Their proportion of the total population of America is 0.28%. That is, the Greeks in the United States have only 871,500 people. Of which 6,500 are from Cyprus.

Even more small is the Iranian group. Only 0.2% of the population. They are Persians, Kurds, Afghans, Tajiks and Baluchis. In total they are less than 630 000 people. Even the Armenians representing the same name group, and even more - 0,22% (more than 705 000 people).

Even in America, Lithuanians live (0.1%) and Latvians (0.02%), Albanians (0.05%), Hungarians (0.22%), Finns (0.13%), Estonians (0.01% ) And Basques (0.001%). But least of all in the US Samoyed people. This is the people that make up the Uralic language family. According to statistics, in America there are only 100 of them.

You can talk a long time about the ethnic composition. It includes Asians and Pacificers (4.17%), Eskimos (0.05%), representatives of the Indian group (0.8%), Africans (0.41%), Somalis (0.04%) and a few dozen Other peoples. Looking at their full list, you can see that the US is perhaps the most multinational state in the world.

The racial makeup of the United States

About him also need to briefly tell. Everyone knows what a race is. This is a historically formed group of people, which is characterized by common physical features (eye, skin color, hair, etc.). And there is a separate statistics, looking at which you can understand how in this context is the composition of the US population.

The racial makeup is not as diverse as the ethnic composition. White Americans, according to statistics, make up about 75% of the population. Then there are a large number of African Americans. They are about 12.5%. Asians make up 4.5% of the US population. Representatives of other races live in the amount of 5%.

There is also a "mixed" category. It includes representatives of two or more races at the same time. And they make up 2.5% of the total population. The remaining 1% are Indians, Eskimos and Native inhabitants of Oceania / Hawaiian Islands.

It is interesting that in America there are several states in the territory of which there are more representatives of racial minorities than whites. These include Hawaii, New Mexico, Texas, Columbia and California. Most of all white, by the way, lives in the Midwest.

Canada

This state borders on America, and it is impossible not to mention it. Still, it is interesting to know what are the characteristics of the ethnic composition of the United States and Canada.

This country is geographically larger than America by ~ 300,000 square kilometers. However, 10 times less people live on its territory. And the ethnic composition is not so diverse, although in the last 30 years it has undergone serious changes. All because of the changes in the course of immigration policy.

One third of the citizens who live in the census at the beginning of this century identified themselves as Canadians. About 22% of residents said about their English origin. Approximately 19% of people identified themselves as French. The remaining ~ 17% represent other nationalities.

Interestingly, the Muslim population of the country has grown by 82% over the past 10 years. At the same time, the number of Arabs and representatives of Turkic-speaking peoples increased.

The top of society

Finally I would like to note the national composition of the elite of the United States. Prior to Donald Trump, there were 44 presidents who ruled America. Among them were three Irishmen (Reagan and Kennedy including), the same number of Dutch (which were Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt) and two Germans (Hoover and Eisenhower). What about the rest? Another 35 presidents were British. Of which 8 were Scots (George Washington is a prime example).

And Barack Obama, the 44th US president, was a Kenyan Jew. The current ruler, Donald Trump, is half German and half Scotsman. His father was an emigrant from Bavaria, and his mother was born on the island of Lewis.

However, such ethnic "mixture" in the elite of the USA is not surprising. After all, the national composition of this state is really impressive, with which it is difficult to argue.