White American : Ask Biography

1^st row: Marilyn Monroe Ronald Reagan Mariska Hargitay Edgar Allan Poe Mother Seton 2^nd row: Ben Franklin Amelia Earhart John F. Kennedy Elizabeth Kortright Monroe Samuel Alito 3^rd row: Evelyn Nesbit Norman Rockwell Susanna Hoffs Cotton Mather Danica Patrick 4^th row: Robert E. Lee Greta Garbo Eddie Vedder Rima Fakih Andy García 5^th row: Maria Mitchell José Francisco Chaves Mary Higgins Clark Dan Marino Susan B Anthony

Ethnic group

Group

White American

Population

223,553,265
72.4% of the total U.S. population in 2010

Main region

All areas of the United States

Home | Ethnic Group | White American

White Americans are people of the United States who are considered or consider themselves White. The United States Census Bureau defines White people as those "having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa. It includes people who reported “White” or wrote in entries such as Irish, German, Italian, Lebanese, Near Easterner, Arab, or Polish." Like all official U.S. racial categories, "White" has a "Not Hispanic or Latino" and a "Hispanic or Latino" component, the latter consisting mostly of White Mexican Americans and white Cuban Americans. The term "Caucasian" is often used interchangeably with "White".

German Americans (16.5%), Irish Americans (11.9%), English Americans (9.0%), Italian Americans (5.8%), Polish Americans (3.3%), French Americans (3.1%), Scottish Americans (1.9%), Dutch Americans (1.6%), Norwegian Americans (1.5%), and Swedish Americans (1.4%) constitute the ten largest White American ancestries. Sixty million Americans, one fifth of the total United States population, claim British ancestry. Whites constitute the majority, with 72.4% or 223,553,265 of the population in the 2010 United States Census.