Largest Ethnic Groups And Nationalities In The United States

The United States is one of the most racially and ethnically varied countries on Earth, but describing that mix is trickier than it sounds. The federal government actually measures identity in more than one way. The Census Bureau asks people separately about their race, about whether they are of Hispanic or Latino origin, and, on the yearly American Community Survey, about their ancestry or "roots." Those are three different questions with three different sets of answers, so the numbers below do not add up to a single tidy list. Read together, though, they paint a detailed picture of where Americans trace their origins. And when people are asked about ancestry, one answer comes up more than any other: German.

Race and Hispanic Origin: Two Separate Questions

This is the piece that trips up most rankings. Under the standards the government has used since 1980, race and Hispanic origin are counted separately, and a person who is Hispanic can be of any race. The census currently recognizes five race categories, White, Black or African American, American Indian and Alaska Native, Asian, and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander, plus a "some other race" option and the ability to select more than one.

As of the 2020 Census, the White alone, non-Hispanic population was the largest group at 57.8%, down from 63.7% a decade earlier. Hispanic or Latino residents, who can be of any race, were the second-largest group at 18.7%. Black or African American residents (alone, non-Hispanic) made up 12.1%, and Asian residents 5.9%. People reporting two or more races were 4.1%. It is worth remembering these are self-reported identities, and the 2020 count found the country to be more multiracial than ever, partly because of real change and partly because the Bureau improved how it asks the questions.

The Largest Reported Ancestries

Ancestry is the third question, asked on the American Community Survey, and it is where "German" tops the list. According to the 2022 survey, the most commonly reported ancestries were German (about 41 million people), English (31 million), Irish (31 million), "American" (18 million), and Italian (16 million). Because people can name more than one ancestry and many skip the question entirely, these figures overlap and undercount some groups, but the broad ranking has held steady for years.

German

German is the single most reported ancestry in the country, claimed by roughly one in eight Americans. The largest waves arrived in the 1800s, and German roots run deepest across the Midwest, where in states such as Wisconsin, Minnesota, and the Dakotas more than three in ten residents report German heritage.

English

People of English ancestry, one of the oldest European-origin groups in the country, number around 31 million. English ancestry is almost certainly undercounted, because many people whose families have been in the country for centuries now simply answer "American" when asked about their roots. That group is concentrated across the South, the Upland South, and Appalachia.

Irish

Roughly 31 million Americans report Irish ancestry. Many descend from immigrants who fled the Great Famine of the 1840s, settling heavily in cities like Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago. Today you are more than twice as likely to meet someone with Irish roots in Massachusetts or New Hampshire, which lead the nation.

The Largest Racial and Origin Groups

African American

A Black or African American person is defined by having origins in any of the Black racial groups of Africa. Most Black Americans descend from enslaved people forcibly taken from West and Central Africa by European colonizers, though many also trace ancestry to more recent immigration from the Caribbean, Africa, and South America. The history of racial discrimination runs deep; legal segregation was dismantled in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement, though inequality persists. As of the 2020 Census, Black or African American residents (alone, non-Hispanic) made up about 12.1% of the population.

Hispanic and Latino Americans

Hispanic or Latino is an origin, not a race, and it is now the second-largest group in the country at 18.7% of the population, or about 62 million people in 2020. It is also one of the fastest-growing, accounting for roughly half of all US population growth between 2010 and 2020. People of Mexican origin are by far the largest subgroup, making up around six in ten Hispanic Americans, followed by those of Puerto Rican origin. Hispanic communities are especially prominent across the Southwest, and in California and New Mexico they form the largest group of any.

Native Americans

American Indian and Alaska Native peoples were the original inhabitants of the land that is now the United States. European colonization brought devastating new diseases and violence, and the Native population fell sharply in the centuries that followed. As of the 2020 Census, about 1.1% of Americans identified as American Indian and Alaska Native alone, with several million more reporting it in combination with another race. The largest tribal groupings today include the Navajo, Cherokee, and Sioux, and Native communities continue to face disproportionately high poverty rates.

Asian Americans

Asian Americans are among the fastest-growing groups in the country, making up about 5.9% of the population as of 2020. The category spans dozens of distinct origins; nationally, the largest are Chinese, Asian Indian, and Filipino Americans. Asian populations are especially concentrated in California, New York, Hawaii, and Texas, and Hawaii is the only state where Asian residents form the largest group.

Most Commonly Reported Ancestries in the US

The table below shows the largest self-reported ancestry groups, based on the 2022 American Community Survey. Because respondents may report more than one ancestry, and because "race" groups like Black or African American and origin groups like Mexican are counted through separate census questions, these figures should be read as a snapshot of reported heritage rather than a single ranked breakdown of the population.

These ancestry figures sit alongside, not inside, the race and Hispanic-origin counts. Taken together, all three measures tell the same larger story: the United States draws its population from an unusually wide range of origins, and that mix keeps shifting with each new census.