Ancestry in the United States

* All figures come from the U.S. Census Bureau Report issued in June 2004


The Census Bureau defines ancestry as a person's ethnic origin, racial heritage, descent, or "roots," which may reflect their place of birth, place of birth of parents or ancestors, and ethnic identities that have evolved within the United States.


A few notes about the data:

Some ancestries are general may encompass several ancestries not listed separately (i.e., African American, White).

People who reported two ancestries were included once in each category.

"NS" = Not statistically different from zero at the 90-percent confidence level

sort by: alphabetical | total population | fastest-growing | largest increase

	1990		2000		Change, 1990 to 2000
Ancestry	Number	Percent	Number	Percent	Number	Percent
Total population	248,709,873	100.0	281,421,906	100.0	32,712,033	13.2
African *	245,845	0.1	1,183,316	0.4	937,471	381.3
African American *1,2	23,750,256	9.5	24,903,412	8.8	1,153,156	4.9
Albanian	47,710	-	113,661	-	65,951	138.2
American *	12,395,999	5.0	20,188,305	7.2	7,792,306	62.9
American Indian *	8,689,344	3.5	7,876,568	2.8	-812,776	-9.4
Arab *	127,364	0.1	205,822	0.1	78,458	61.6
Armenian	308,096	0.1	385,488	0.1	77,392	25.1
Asian *	107,172	-	238,960	0.1	131,788	123.0
Asian Indian	569,338	0.2	1,546,703	0.5	977,365	171.7
Austrian	864,783	0.3	730,336	0.3	-134,447	-15.5
Belgian	380,403	0.2	348,531	0.1	-31,872	-8.4
Brazilian	65,875	-	181,076	0.1	115,201	174.9
British	1,119,140	0.4	1,085,718	0.4	-33,422	-3.0
Cambodian 2	134,955	0.1	197,093	0.1	62,138	46.0
Canadian	549,990	0.2	638,548	0.2	88,558	16.1
Chinese	1,505,229	0.6	2,271,562	0.8	766,333	50.9
Colombian	351,717	0.1	583,986	0.2	232,269	66.0
Croatian 1	544,270	0.2	374,241	0.1	-170,029	-31.2
Cuban	859,739	0.3	1,097,594	0.4	237,855	27.7
Czech	1,296,369	0.5	1,258,452	0.4	-37,917	-2.9
Czechoslovakian	315,285	0.1	441,403	0.2	126,118	40.0
Danish	1,634,648	0.7	1,430,897	0.5	-203,751	-12.5
Dominican 1,2	505,690	0.2	908,531	0.3	402,841	79.7
Dutch	6,226,339	2.5	4,541,770	1.6	-1,684,569	-27.1
Ecuadorian1	197,374	0.1	322,965	0.1	125,591	63.6
Egyptian	78,574	-	142,832	0.1	64,258	81.8
English	32,651,788	13.1	24,509,692	8.7	-8,142,096	-24.9
European *	466,718	0.2	1,968,696	0.7	1,501,978	321.8
Filipino	1,450,512	0.6	2,116,478	0.8	665,966	45.9
Finnish	658,854	0.3	623,559	0.2	-35,295	-5.4
French	10,320,656	4.1	8,309,666	3.0	-2,010,990	-19.5
French Canadian 1,2	2,167,127	0.9	2,349,684	0.8	182,557	8.4
German 1	57,947,171	23.3	42,841,569	15.2	-15,105,602	-26.1
Greek	1,110,292	0.4	1,153,295	0.4	43,003	3.9
Guatemalan	241,559	0.1	463,502	0.2	221,943	91.9
Guyanese	81,665	-	162,425	0.1	80,760	98.9
Haitian 1,2	289,521	0.1	548,199	0.2	258,678	89.3
Hawaiian	256,081	0.1	334,858	0.1	78,777	30.8
Hispanic *	1,113,259	0.4	2,451,109	0.9	1,337,850	120.2
Hmong	84,823	-	140,528	-	55,705	65.7
Honduran	116,635	-	266,848	0.1	150,213	128.8
Hungarian	1,582,302	0.6	1,398,702	0.5	-183,600	-11.6
Iranian	235,521	0.1	338,266	0.1	102,745	43.6
Irish1	38,735,539	15.6	30,524,799	10.8	-8,210,740	-21.2
Israeli	81,677	-	106,839	-	25,162	30.8
Italian 1,2	14,664,189	5.9	15,638,348	5.6	974,159	6.6
Jamaican 1,2	435,024	0.2	736,513	0.3	301,489	69.3
Japanese	1,004,622	0.4	1,103,325	0.4	98,703	9.8
Korean 1,2	836,987	0.3	1,190,353	0.4	353,366	42.2
Laotian	146,947	0.1	179,866	0.1	32,919	22.4
Latin American *	43,521	-	250,052	0.1	206,531	474.6
Lebanese 1,2	394,180	0.2	440,279	0.2	46,099	11.7
Lithuanian	811,865	0.3	659,992	0.2	-151,873	-18.7
Mexican 1,2	11,580,038	4.7	18,382,291	6.5	6,802,253	58.7
Nicaraguan	177,077	0.1	230,358	0.1	53,281	30.1
Nigerian 1,2	91,499	-	164,691	0.1	73,192	80.0
Northern European *	65,993	-	163,657	0.1	97,664	148.0
Norwegian 2	3,869,395	1.6	4,477,725	1.6	608,330	15.7
Pakistani	99,974	-	253,193	0.1	153,219	153.3
Panamanian	88,649	-	119,497	-	30,848	34.8
Pennsylvania German	305,841	0.1	255,807	0.1	-50,034	-16.4
Peruvian	161,866	0.1	292,991	0.1	131,125	81.0
Polish 1,2	9,366,051	3.8	8,977,235	3.2	-388,816	-4.2
Portuguese	1,148,857	0.5	1,173,691	0.4	24,834	2.2
Puerto Rican	1,955,323	0.8	2,652,598	0.9	697,275	35.7
Romanian	365,531	0.1	367,278	0.1	1,747	(NS)
Russian	2,951,373	1.2	2,652,214	0.9	-299,159	-10.1
Salvadoran	499,153	0.2	802,743	0.3	303,590	60.8
Scandinavian	678,880	0.3	425,099	0.2	-253,781	-37.4
Scotch-Irish	5,617,773	2.3	4,319,232	1.5	-1,298,541	-23.1
Scottish	5,393,581	2.2	4,890,581	1.7	-503,000	-9.3
Serbian	116,795	-	140,337	-	235,422	0.2
Slavic	76,923	-	127,136	-	50,213	65.3
Slovak 1	1,882,897	0.8	797,764	0.3	-1,085,133	-57.6
Slovene	124,437	0.1	176,691	0.1	52,254	42.0
Spaniard	360,858	0.1	299,948	0.1	-60,910	-16.9
Spanish	2,024,004	0.8	2,187,144	0.8	163,140	8.1
Swedish	4,680,863	1.9	3,998,310	1.4	-682,553	-14.6
Swiss	1,045,492	0.4	911,502	0.3	-133,990	-12.8
Syrian	129,606	0.1	142,897	0.1	13,291	10.3
Taiwanese 1,2	192,973	0.1	293,568	0.1	100,595	52.1
Thai 1	112,117	-	146,577	0.1	34,460	30.7
Trinidadian and Tobagonian	76,270	-	164,738	0.1	88,468	116.0
Turkish	83,850	-	117,575	-	33,725	40.2
Ukrainian 1,2	740,723	0.3	892,922	0.3	152,199	20.5
United States *	643,561	0.3	404,328	0.1	-239,233	-37.2
Vietnamese	535,825	0.2	1,029,420	0.4	493,595	92.1
Welsh	2,033,893	0.8	1,753,794	0.6	-280,099	-13.8
West Indian *	159,167	0.1	147,222	0.1	-11,945	-7.5
Western European *	42,409	-	125,300	-	82,891	195.5
White *	1,799,711	0.7	3,834,122	1.4	2,034,411	113.0
Yugoslavian	257,986	0.1	328,547	0.1	70,561	27.4
Other ancestries	3,989,728	1.6	4,380,380	1.6	390,652	9.8

- Rounds to 0.0.

People in America Series: Ancestry in the United States

"*": General response which may encompass several ancestries not listed separately (i.e., African American includes Black and Negro).

"NS": Not statistically different from zero at the 90-percent confidence level.

"1": Included in the list of examples on the census questionnaire in 1990.

"2": Included in the list of examples on the census questionnaire in 2000.

Notes: Because of sampling error, the estimates in this table may not be significantly different from one another or from other ancestries not listed in this table.

People who reported two ancestries were included once in each category. The estimates in this table differ slightly in some cases from the estimates in other data products due to the collapsing schemes used. For example, here German does not include Bavarian. Some groups correspond to groups identified separately in the race and Hispanic-origin questions. The race item provides the primary source of data for White, Black, American Indian, Alaska Native, Asian groups, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander groups. The Hispanic-origin question is the primary identifier for Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, and other Hispanic groups.

Editor's note: the ethnic and racial terms used on this page (e.g. "Negro") are those used by the Bureau of the U.S. Census, not the choice of the owners of this web site.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 1990 Census and Census 2000 special tabulations.


Compiled by Rhett Butler