Ethnic groups in the United States
Most common single ancestries in the United
States (according to US Census
2000)
German
American
Mexican
Irish
African American
Italian
English
Japanese
Puerto Rican
The United States is a diverse country ra-
cially and ethnically.[1] White Americans are
the racial majority and are spread throughout
the country; racial minorities, composing one
fourth of the population, are concentrated in
coastal and metropolitan areas.[2] The Black
American or African American population is
concentrated in the South, and also spread
throughout parts of the Northeast and Midw-
est. Black Americans make up the largest ra-
cial minority in the United States.[2]
White Americans make up 76% of the total
population per the 2006 American Com-
munity Survey (ACS).[2] Of the White Americ-
an population, 8% are Hispanic (comprising
approximately half of the Hispanic group’s
population).[3] White Americans are the ma-
jority in every region but attain their highest
concentration in the Midwest, where they ac-
count for 84% of the population.[2] Asian
Americans are concentrated in the Western
states; 47% of them reside there,[2] mostly in
California and Hawaii. Half of the American
Indian population resides in the West;[2]
there were 4.1 million in 2000, including
those of partial ancestry,[4] their highest pop-
ulation ever since the U.S. was founded in
1776. The Inuit population is mainly found in
Alaska, and more than three quarters of the
Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander popula-
tion is found in the West,[2] mostly in Hawaii
and California. The population of those de-
scribed as "two or more races" resides mostly
in the West and South, where a combined
69% of all multiracial Americans reside.[2]
Americans of "Some other race" — a catchall,
non-standard category almost all of whose
members are reclassified as white in official
documents[4] — are nearly all Hispanic or
Latino in ancestral or national origin,[5] and
44% lived in the West in 2006.[2]
Hispanic and Latino Americans form a ra-
cially
and