White American

Density of Americans self-reported as "white" in the 2000 Census. (Note that around 8% of White Americans also identify as Hispanic.)

White Americans as percent of population, Census 2000. (Note that around 8% of White Americans also identify as Hispanic.)

The term White American is rarely used, both because racial categories such as white are rarely used to identify a "hyphenated American" group, and because white Americans often identify simply as "white" and tend not to identify themselves as a sub-group of Americans. The (capitalized) phrase "White American" commonly refers to the group defined by the US Census; in almost all other cases, "white" is not capitalized and is rarely part of the phrase "white American." In the United States, the term white might appear to be synonymous with White American, but the Census definition is somewhat counterintuitive (see below) and the the cultural boundaries separating white from other racial or ethnic categories are contested and always changing. See the full discussion in the article "White (people)."

US Census Statistics and Definitions

White American is the largest racial group counted in the 2000 Census, comprising 77.1 percent of the population. About 2% of this total were people who identified as "white" in combination with one or more other races; about 8% also identified ethnically as Hispanic. The largest ethnic groups among White Americans were Germans followed by the Irish and the English.

Note that many Americans who are treated as part of minority groups are included in the census category White. This is true for many Hispanic Americans, since the 2000 Census separated questions of "race" from the "ethnic" question of Hispanic identification. (Around 48% of Hispanic Americans identify as "white," while 42% identify racially as "Hispanic" by selecting "Other" as their racial group and writing in a Hispanic national origin or pan-ethnic label.) It is also true for many Arab and non-European Jewish Americans, since the 2000 Census conflates race and geographic/national origin: white is defined to include people with ancestral origins in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.

Because of these inconsistencies, statistics for White Americans are rarely used for demographic, civil-rights, or other social statistical purposes.

Geographic Distribution of White Americans

According to the Census definition, White Americans are the majority racial group in almost all of the United States. They are not the majority in many American Indian reservations, parts of the South known as the Black Belt, the majority-Hispanic Central Valley of California (note that many Hispanics designate their race as "Other"), and in many urban areas throughout the country.

See also

Other terms commonly used for "White American":
*White (people)
*European American

External links

*White Population 2000 from the US Census