European Americans
European Americans, or Americans of European descent, are descendants of European settlers and immigrants. 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 largest panethnic group in what are now the United States.
Largest white alone or in any combination group by county in the 2020 United States census. | |
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 133 million European-diaspora Americans 41% of total U.S. population (2017) (as opposed to 235.4 million Americans identifying as White in combination with other races and 204.3 million self-identifying as white) 61.6% of the total U.S. population (2020) | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Contiguous United States and Alaska smaller populations in Hawaii and the territories | |
| Languages | |
| Predominantly English, but also other languages of Europe | |
| Religion | |
| Predominantly Christianity (Mainly Protestantism and Roman Catholicism); Minority religions: Judaism, Mormonism, Islam, Neo-Paganism, Scientology, Irreligion, Atheism |
The Spaniards are thought to have been the first Europeans to establish a continuous presence in what is now the contiguous United States, with Martín de Argüelles (b. 1566) in St. Augustine, then a part of Spanish Florida, and the Russians were the first Europeans to settle in Alaska, establishing Russian America. The first English child born in the Americas was Virginia Dare, born August 18, 1587. She was born in Roanoke Colony, located in present-day North Carolina, which was the first attempt, made during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, to establish a permanent English settlement in North America.
In the 2020 United States census, English Americans (46.5 million), German Americans (45 million), Irish Americans (38.6 million), Italian Americans (16.8 million) and Polish Americans (8.6 million) were the five largest self-reported European ancestry groups in the United States. However, the number of people with British ancestry is considered to be significantly under-counted, as many people in that demographic tend to identify themselves simply as Americans (20,151,829 or 7.2%). The same applies to Americans of Spanish ancestry, as many people in that demographic tend to identify themselves as Hispanic and Latino Americans (58,846,134 or 16.6%), even though they carry a mean of 65.1% European genetic ancestry, mainly from Spain.
An increasing number of people ignored the ancestry question or chose no specific ancestral group such as "American or United States". In the 2000 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".