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European Americans

Largest (non-Hispanic) white alone or in any combination group by county (2020)
Total population
120,114,876 (2020) Detailed European responses only[a] 58.8% of the White alone population[1] 204.3Mwhite (one race)[2] 235.4M White alone orin combination 96.5 million Non-specified white ancestry[3]
Regions with significant populations
Contiguous United States andAlaska smaller populations inHawaii and theterritories[citation needed]
Languages
PredominantlyEnglish, but also otherlanguages of Europe[citation needed]
Religion
PredominantlyChristianity (MainlyProtestantism andRoman Catholicism); Minority religions:Judaism,Mormonism,Islam,Neo-Paganism,Irreligion,Atheism[citation needed]

European Americans areAmericans ofEuropean ancestry.^[4][5] This term includes both people who descend from the first European settlers in the area of the present-day United States and people who descend from more recent European arrivals. Since the 17th century, European Americans have been the largestpanethnic group in what is now the United States. According to the2020 United States census, 58.8% of theWhite alone population and 56.1% of the White alone or in combination wrote in a detailed European response.^[6]

TheSpaniards were the first Europeans to establish a continuous presence in what is now thecontiguous United States, withMartín de Argüelles (b. 1566) inSt. Augustine, then a part ofSpanish Florida,^[7][8] and theRussians were the first Europeans to settle inAlaska, establishingRussian America. The firstEnglish child born in theAmericas wasVirginia Dare, born August 18, 1587. She was born inRoanoke Colony, located in present-dayNorth Carolina, which was the first attempt, made during the reign ofQueen Elizabeth I, to establish a permanentEnglish settlement in North America.

In the2020 United States census,English Americans (46.6 million),German Americans (45 million),Irish Americans (38.6 million),Italian Americans (16.8 million) andPolish Americans (8.6 million) were the five largest self-reported European ancestry groups in the United States.^[9]

The 2020 census was the first census to allow data collection on subtypes of Europeans. During previous surveys, the number of people with British ancestry was considered to be significantly under-counted, as many people in that demographic tended to identify themselves simply as Americans (20,151,829 or 7.2%).^{[10][11][12][13]} A 2015 genetic study of 148,789European Americans concluded that British ancestry was the most common European ancestry among white Americans, with this component ranging between 20% and 55% of the total population in all 50 states.^[14] The same applies to Americans of Spanish ancestry, as many people in that demographic tend to identify themselves asHispanic and Latino Americans (58,846,134 or 16.6%), even though they carry a mean of 65.1% European genetic ancestry, mainly fromSpain.^[15]

An increasing number of people ignore the ancestry or origins question or chose no specific ancestral group such as "American or United States". In the2000 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".^[16][17] In the 2020 U.S. census, 96.58 million people did not report any detailed white ethnic origins and are "Not specified".^[18]

In 1995, as part of a review of theOffice of Management and Budget's Statistical Policy Directive No. 15 (Race and Ethnic Standards for Federal Statistics and Administrative Reporting), a survey was conducted of census recipients to determine their preferred terminology for the racial/ethnic groups defined in the Directive. For theWhite group,European American came a distant third, preferred by only 2.35% of panel interviewees, as opposed toWhite, which was preferred by 61.66%.^[19]

The term is sometimes used interchangeably with Caucasian American,White American, andAnglo-American in the United States.^[20]

In contexts such as medical research, terms such as "white" and "European" have been criticized for vagueness and blurring important distinctions between different groups that happen to fit within the label.^[21] Margo Adair suggests that viewing Americans of European descent as a single group contributes to the "wonder-breading" of the United States, eradicating the cultural heritage of individual European ethnicities.^[22]

There are several subgroupings of European Americans.^[23] While these categories may be approximately defined, often due to the imprecise or cultural regionalization of Europe, the subgroups are nevertheless used widely in cultural or ethnic identification.^[24] This is particularly the case in diasporic populations, as with European people in the United States generally.^[25] In alphabetical order, some of the subgroups are:

• Northwestern European Americans, includingAustrian Americans,Belgian Americans,British Americans (Cornish Americans,English Americans,Manx Americans,Scotch-Irish Americans,Scottish Americans,Welsh Americans),Dutch Americans,French Americans (Breton Americans),German Americans,Irish Americans,Luxembourger Americans,Nordic and Scandinavian Americans (Danish Americans,Finnish Americans,Icelandic Americans,Norwegian Americans,Swedish Americans), andSwiss Americans, or "Old Immigrants" (the first waves of which arrived pre-1881)
• Eastern European Americans, includingBelarusian Americans,Czech Americans,Estonian Americans,Hungarian Americans,Latvian Americans,Lithuanian Americans,Polish Americans,Russian Americans,Slovak Americans, andUkrainian Americans, or "New Immigrants" (the first large waves of which arrived 1881–1965)
• Southern European Americans, includingAlbanian Americans,Bosnian Americans,Bulgarian Americans,Croatian Americans,Cypriot Americans,Greek Americans,Italian Americans,Maltese Americans,Macedonian Americans,Moldovan Americans,Montenegrin Americans,Portuguese Americans,Romanian Americans,Serbian Americans,Slovenian Americans, andSpanish Americans (Basque Americans,Catalan Americans,Galician Americans), also "New Immigrants" or "New Immigrants"(the first large waves of which arrived 1881–1965)

Historical immigration estimates[26][27]
Country	Immigration before 1790	Ancestry 1790
England*	230,000	1,900,000
France	150,000	500,000
Ulster Scotch-Irish*	135,000	320,000
Germany[b]	103,000	280,000
Scotland*	48,500	160,000
Ireland	8,000	200,000
Netherlands	6,000	100,000
Wales*	4,000	120,000
Sweden and Other[c]	500	20,000
*Totals, British	417,500	2,500,000+
United States[d]	950,000	3,929,214

Before the arrival of Europeans,Native Americans predominantly inhabited the United States. The earliest Europeans to colonize North America were the Spaniards. The first Spanish colonization was in 1565 atSt. Augustine, Florida.^[28] One of the most significant Spanish explorers wasHernando De Soto, a conquistador who accompaniedFrancisco Pizzaro during hisconquest of the Inca Empire.

Leaving Havana, Cuba, in 1539, De Soto's expedition landed in Florida. It explored the southeastern area of the United States. They reached as far as the Mississippi River in search of riches and fortune. Another Spaniard who explored the United States,Francisco Vázquez de Coronado, set out fromNew Spain in 1540 in search of the mythicalSeven Cities of Gold. Coronado's expedition traveled to Kansas and the Grand Canyon but failed to discover gold or treasure. However, Coronado left a gift of horses to the Plains Indians. Italian explorerGiovanni da Verrazano and FrenchmanJacques Cartier are other Europeans who explored the United States. The Spaniards viewed the French as threatening their trade route along the Gulf Stream.^[29]

Since 1607, some 57 million immigrants from other lands have come to the United States. Approximately 10 million passed through on their way to some other place or returned to their homelands, leaving a net gain of 47 million people.^[30]

Before 1881, the vast majority of immigrants, almost 86% of the total, arrived fromNorthwestern Europe, principallyGreat Britain,Ireland,Germany, andScandinavia, known as "Old Immigration". Between 1881 and 1893, the pattern shifted in the sources of U.S. "New Immigration." Between 1894 and 1914, immigrants fromCentral,Eastern, andSouthern Europe accounted for 69% of the total.^[31][32][33] Prior to 1960, the overwhelming majority came from Europe or ofEuropean descent from Canada. Immigration from Europe as a proportion of new arrivals has declined since the mid-20th century, with 75.0% of the total foreign-born population born in Europe compared to 12.1% recorded in the 2010 census.^[34]

European-born population

The figures below show that of the total population of the specified birthplace in the United States, 11.1% were born overseas.

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Breakdowns of the European American population into sub-components is a difficult and rather arbitrary exercise. Farley (1991) argues that "because of ethnic intermarriage, the numerous generations that separate respondents from their forebears and the apparent unimportance to many whites of European origin, responses appear quite inconsistent".^[48]

Ethnic origin	1980 / %[49]		1990 / %[50][51]		2000 / %[52]		2020 / %[53][54]		change 2000–2020
United States pop.	226,545,805	100.0	248,709,873	100.0	281,421,906	100.0	331,449,281	100.0	7.4%
At least one ancestry reported	188,302,438	83.1	224,788,502	90.4	225,310,411	80.1	TBA	TBA
Acadian/Cajun	—	—	668,271	0.3	85,414	0.0	132,624	0.1
Albanian	38,658	0.02	47,710	0.0	113,661	0.0	236,635	0.1
Alsatian	42,390	0.02	16,465	0.0	15,601	0.0	12,056	0.00
American[e]	13,298,761	5.9	12,395,999	5.0	20,625,093	7.3	-	-
Austrian	948,558	0.42	864,783	0.3	735,128	0.3	697,425	0.3
Basque	43,140	0.0	47,956	0.0	57,793	0.0	52,559	0.0
Bavarian	—	—	4,348	0.0	-	-	-	-	-
Belarusian	7,381	0.00	4,277	0.0	-	-	67,599	0.0
Belgian	360,277	0.16	380,498[f]	0.2	360,642	0.1	384,224	0.2
British	—	—	1,119,154	0.4	1,085,720	0.4	860,315	0.4
British Islander	—	—	—	—	—	—	43,654	0.0
Bulgarian	42,504	0.02	29,595	0.0	55,489	0.0	102,968	0.0
Carpatho Rusyn	—	—	7,602	0.0			9,747	0.00
Celtic	—	—	29,652	0.0	65,638	0.0	30,630	0.0
Cornish	—	—	3,991	0.0	-	-	6,257	0.0
Croatian	252,970	0.11	544,270	0.2	374,241	0.1	448,479	0.2
Cypriot	6,053	0.00	4,897	0.0	7,663	0.0	10,384	0.00
Czech	1,892,456	0.84	1,296,411[g]	0.5	1,262,527	0.4	1,397,780	0.6
Czechoslovakian	—	—	315,285	0.1	441,403	0.2	-	-
Danish	1,518,273	0.67	1,634,669	0.7	1,430,897	0.5	1,314,209	0.6
Dutch	6,304,499	2.78	6,227,089	2.5	4,542,494	1.6	3,649,179	1.6
Eastern European[h]	62,404	0.03	132,332	0.1	-	-	-	-
English	49,598,035	21.89	32,651,788	13.1	24,515,138	8.7	46,550,968	19.8
Estonian	25,994	0.01	26,762	0.0	25,034	0.0	30,054	0.0
European[h]	175,461	0.08	466,718	0.2	1,968,696	0.7	-	-
Finnish	615,872	0.27	658,870	0.3	623,573	0.2	684,373	0.3
Flemish	—	—	14,157	0.0			384,224	0.2
French	12,892,246	5.69	10,320,935	4.1	8,309,908	3.0	7,994,088	3.4
French Canadian	780,488	0.34	2,167,127	0.9	2,349,684	0.8	933,740	0.4
German	49,224,146	21.73	57,947,171[i]	23.3	42,885,162	15.2	44,978,546	19.1
German Russian	—	—	10,153	0.0	10,535	0.0
Greek	959,856	0.42	1,110,373	0.4	1,153,307	0.4	568,564	0.2
Hungarian	1,776,902	0.78	1,582,302	0.6	1,398,724	0.5	684,373	0.3
Icelandic	32,586	0.01	40,529	0.0	42,716	0.0	55,602	0.0
Irish	40,165,702	17.73	38,735,539[j]	15.6	30,528,492	10.8	38,597,428	16.4
Italian	12,183,692	5.38	14,664,550[k]	5.9	15,723,555	5.6	16,813,235	7.1
Latvian	92,141	0.04	100,331	0.0	87,564	0.0	92,944	0.0
Lithuanian	742,776	0.33	811,865	0.3	659,992	0.2	711,089	0.3
Luxemburger	49,994	0.02	49,061	0.0	45,139	0.0	57,359	0.0
Macedonian	—	—	20,365	0.0	38,051	0.0	51,401	0.0
Maltese	31,645	0.01	39,600	0.0	40,159	0.0	44,874	0.0
Manx	9,220	0.00	6,317	0.0	6,955	0.0	8,704	0.0
Moravian	—	—	3,781	0.0	-	-	-	-
Northern Irelander	16,418	0.01	4,009	0.0	3,693	0.0	5,181	0.0
Norwegian	3,453,839	1.52	3,869,395	1.6	4,477,725	1.6	3,836,884	1.6
Pennsylvania German	—	—	305,841	0.1	255,807	0.1	169,821	0.1
Polish	8,228,037	3.63	9,366,106	3.8	8,977,444	3.2	8,599,601	3.7
Portuguese	1,024,351	0.45	1,153,351	0.5	1,177,112	0.4	1,454,262	0.6
Prussian	—	—	25,469	0.0	-	-	-	-
Romanian	315,258	0.14	365,544	0.1	367,310	0.1	416,545	0.2
Russian	2,781,432	1.23	2,952,987	1.2	2,652,214	0.9	2,412,131	1.0
Saxon	—	—	4,519	0.0	—	—	—	—
Scandinavian	475,007	0.21	678,880	0.3	425,099	0.2	1,217,333	0.5
Scots-Irish	—	—	5,617,773	2.3	4,319,232	1.5	794,478	0.3
Scottish	10,048,816	4.44	5,393,581	2.2	4,890,581	1.7	8,422,613	3.6
Serbian	100,941	0.04	116,795	0.0	140,337	0.0	204,380	0.1
Sicilian	—	—	50,389	0.0	-	-	-	-
Slavic	172,696	0.08	76,931	0.0	127,137	0.0	180,316	0.1
Slovak	776,806	0.34	1,882,897	0.8	797,764	0.3	691,455	0.3
Slovenian	126,463	0.06	124,437	0.1	176,691	0.1	196,513	0.1
Soviet	—	—	7,729	0.0	-	-	-	-
Spaniard	94,528	0.04	360,935	0.1	299,948	0.1	978,978	0.4
Spanish	2,686,680	-	2,024,004	0.8	2,187,144	0.8	866,356	0.4
Swedish	4,345,392	1.92	4,680,863	1.9	3,998,310	1.4	3,839,796	1.6
Swiss	981,543	0.43	1,045,495	0.4	911,502	0.3	946,179	0.4
Ukrainian	730,056	0.32	740,723	0.3	892,922	0.3	953,509	0.4
Welsh	1,664,598	0.73	2,033,893	0.8	1,753,794	0.6	1,977,383	0.8
West German	—	—	3,885	0.0	-	-	-	-
Yugoslav	360,174	0.16	257,994	0.1	328,547	0.1	-	-

As the largest component of the American population, the overall American culture deeply reflects the European-influenced culture that predates the United States of America as an independent state. Much of American culture shows influences from the diverse nations of theUnited Kingdom andIreland, such as theEnglish,Irish,Cornish,Manx,Scotch-Irish,Scottish andWelsh. Colonial ties to theUnited Kingdom spread theEnglish language, legal system and other cultural attributes.^[5]

ScholarDavid Hackett Fischer asserts inAlbion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America that the folkways of four groups of people who moved from distinct regions of theUnited Kingdom to theUnited States persisted and provide a substantial cultural basis for much of the modernUnited States.^[55] Fischer explains "the origins and stability of a social system which for two centuries has remained stubbornlydemocratic in its politics,capitalist in its economy,libertarian in its laws andindividualist in its society andpluralistic in its culture."^[56]

Much of the European-American cultural lineage can be traced back toWestern andNorthern Europe, which is institutionalized in the government, traditions, and civic education in the United States.^[57]Since most later European Americans have assimilated into American culture, many Americans of European ancestry now generally express their personal ethnic ties sporadically and symbolically and do not consider their specific ethnic origins to be essential to their identity; however, European American ethnic expression has been revived since the 1960s.^[58] Some European Americans such asItalians,Greeks,Poles,Germans,Ukrainians,Irish, and others have maintained high levels of ethnic identity. In the 1960s, the melting pot ideal to some extent gave way to increased interest in cultural pluralism, strengthening affirmations of ethnic identity among various American ethnic groups, European as well as others.^[58]

TheAmerican legal system also has its roots inFrench philosophy with the separation of powers and the federal system^[59] along withEnglish law in common law.^[60]

• Apple pie –New England was the first region to experience large-scaleEnglish colonization in the early 17th century, beginning in 1620, and it was dominated byEast Anglian Calvinists, better known as thePuritans. Baking was a particular favorite of the New Englanders and was the origin of dishes seen today as quintessentially "American", such asapple pie and the oven-roastedThanksgivingturkey, a bird that although not found in Europe has become linked in tradition and symbolism to the early European immigrants.^[61] "As American as apple pie" is a well-known phrase used to suggest that something is all-American.
• Hamburger – Although the origins of the hamburger, including the country in which it was first served, are subjects of debate, the hamburger first became widely marketed in the United States^[62] and has been internationally known for decades as a symbol of Americanfast food.
• Buffalo wings – Invented in 1964 atAnchor Bar inBuffalo, New York by Italian-American Teressa Bellissimo. Now popular all over the country, it has become a symbol of American cuisine.^[63]
• Hot dog – Hot dogs were brought to New York by German immigrants.^[64]
• Pizza – Italian immigrants fromNaples brought pizza to the United States.^[65]
• Fried chicken – Scottish immigrants brought fried chicken to the Southern United States. Enslaved African Americans began cooking fried chicken based on the recipes from white Scottish slaveholders.^[66]

• Thanksgiving – In the United States, it has become a national secular holiday (official since1863) with religious origins. The first Thanksgiving was celebrated byBritish settlers to give thanks to God and theNative Americans for helping thePilgrims ofPlymouth Colony survive the brutal winter.^[67] The modern Thanksgiving holiday traces its origins from a 1621 celebration at the Plymouth Plantation, where the Plymouth settlers held a harvest feast with theNative Americans after a successful growing season.William Bradford is credited as the first to proclaim the American cultural event which is generally referred to as the "First Thanksgiving".

• Baseball – The earliest recorded game of base-ball involved the family of thePrince of Wales, played indoors in London in November 1748. The Prince is reported as playing "Bass-Ball" again in September 1749 in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, against Lord Middlesex.^[68] English lawyer William Bray recorded a game of baseball onEaster Monday 1755 inGuildford,Surrey; Bray's diary was verified as authentic in September 2008.^[69][70] This early form of the game was apparently brought to North America by English immigrants. The first appearance of the term that exists in print was in "A Little Pretty Pocket-Book" in 1744, where it is called Base-Ball.
• American football – can be traced to modified early versions ofrugby football played inEngland andCanadian football mixed with and ultimately changed byAmerican innovations which led over time to the finished version of the game from 1876 to now. The basic set of rules were first developed in American universities in the mid-19th century.^[71]
• Golf - Golf originated fromScotland in the 15th century, the first course in Scotland beingSt Andrews. The first golf course in America was founded by aScotJohn Reid in 1888, and was named after the first Scottish golf clubSaint Andrew's Golf Club located inYonkers, New York, from here golf soared as a national hobby, and by the turn of the 20th Century there was more than 1,000 golf courses in North America.^[72]

Another area of cultural influence areAmerican Patriotic songs:

• The Star-Spangled Banner – takes its melody from the 18th-century English song "To Anacreon in Heaven" written byJohn Stafford Smith for theAnacreontic Society, a men's social club in London and lyrics written by AmericanFrancis Scott Key. This became a well-known and recognized patriotic song throughout the United States, which was officially designated as the American national anthem in 1931.^[73][74][75]

Before 1931, other songs served as the hymns of American officialdom.

• Amazing Grace – written by British poet andclergymanJohn Newton. Popular amongAfrican Americans, it became an icon in American culture and has been used for a variety of secular purposes and marketing campaigns.^[76]
• Hail, Columbia – initial presidential inauguration song up until early 20th century. Now used for theVice President.
• Battle Hymn of the Republic – Patriotic song sung during the civil war time between 1861 and 1865.

Some European Americans have varying amounts ofNative American and NativeAfrican ancestry. From the23andMe database, about 5 to at least 13 percent of self-identified European American Southerners have greater than 1 percent nativeAfrican ancestry.^[77]Southern states with the highest African American populations tended to have the highest percentages of hidden African ancestry.^[78] European Americans on average are: "98.6 percent Native European, 0.19 percent Native African and 0.18 percent Native American." Inferred British/Irish ancestry is found in European Americans from all states at mean proportions ofabove 20%, and represents a majority of ancestry, above 50% mean proportion, in states suchas Mississippi, Arkansas, and Tennessee. Scandinavianancestry in European Americans is highly localized; most states show only trace meanproportions of Scandinavian ancestry, while it comprises a significant proportion, upwards of10%, of ancestry in European Americans from Minnesota and the Dakotas.^[77][78]

• American ancestry
• Anglo
• Ancestral background of presidents of the United States
• Ethnic groups in Europe
• European Canadians
• European Oceanians
• Immigration to the United States
• Melting pot
• Non-Latino whites
• Stereotypes of white Americans
• White Americans
• White Anglo-Saxon Protestant
• White ethnic
• White Latino Americans
• White Southerners
• Romani Americans
• American Jews
• European Mexicans
• White Americans in California
• White Latin Americans
• Colonial history of the United States
• Hispanic and Latino Americans
• White demographic decline
• European emigration
• European Australians
• Argentines of European descent
• Venezuelans of European descent
• European Moroccans
• European Pakistanis
• European Tunisians
• Peruvians of European descent

• Media related toAmerican people of European descent at Wikimedia Commons

• European diaspora in the United States
• European-American culture
• European diaspora in North America
• Ethnic groups in the United States
• Transatlantic cultural exchange
• Transatlantic relations

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