Population of the USA. Ethnic Groups

Population of the USA

With more than 325 million inhabitants the USA is the third country in the world in terms of population. About 75 percent of the population live in urban areas. Most of these urban centers lie along the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts, the Gulf of Mexico and the Great Lakes. The most populous area is the relatively small Northeast, which accounts for nearly one-fourth of the nation’s population.

The United States contains a highly diverse population as a result of the global immigration. Probably no other country has a wider range of racial, ethnic, and cultural types than America does. In addition to the presence of surviving Native Americans (including American Indians, Aleuts, and Eskimos) and the descendants of Africans taken as slaves to the New World, the national character has been enriched, tested, and constantly redefined by millions of immigrants who have come to America hoping for greater social, political, and economic opportunities than they had in the places they left. That’s why America is often called a “melting pot” of nations.

Ethnic Groups

The US is a multi-racial and multi-ethnic country. The state officially categorizes its population into six groups: the Whites, African Americans, Native Americans/Alaskan Natives, Pacific Islanders, Asians, and Native Hawaiians.

Until about 1860 the vast majority of the population was WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants). Between 1860 and 1920 almost 30 million immigrants arrived from central and southeastern Europe in particular. These mainly Italian, Ukrainian, Russian, Polish and Hungarian immigrants quickly formed their own culturally homogeneous neighbourhoods (“Little Italys”, etc. ) and became the second economic class behind the WASPs. The most rapidly growing ethnic group is the Hispanics (almost 7 percent of Americans), who still continue to use Spanish in their homes even though the vast majority were born in the United States. There are almost 2 million Oriental Americans (predominantly from Japan, China, and the Philippines), who are concentrated mainly in California.

People who identify themselves as African Americans make up more than 14% of the total population. Most African Americans are ethnically descendants of slave populations brought either directly to North America from West and Central Africa, or slaves who entered the Hemisphere through the Caribbean. However, there is a large number whose families arrived after the abolishment of slavery in 1865. This racial group faced a tide of racial discrimination before the 15th amendment of the American Constitution. After centuries of legal battles and riots, the racial discrimination was outlawed, and the group finally became a free community equal to the whites.

Native Americans, also called the Alaska natives, are the only people who did not come to the United States since Columbus went to the New World. This ethnic group makes up 1. 6% of the US population. Before the British colonization, America belonged to this community group but after years of intermarriages with the settlers and then the slavery regime, the population decreased to a mere 5 million.

an inhabitant	[ɪ n'hæ bɪ t(ə )nt]	житель, мешканець
urban	['ɜ: bə n]	міський
relatively	['relə tɪ vlɪ ]	відносно
to account	[ə 'kaunt]	нараховувати
diverse	[daɪ 'vɜ ː s]	різний, різноманітний
racial	['reɪ ʃ (ə )l]	расовий
ethnic	['eθ nɪ k]	етнічний
Aleut	['æ l(j)uː t]	алеут
Eskimo	['eskɪ mə u]	ескімос
a descendant	[dɪ 'sendə nt]	нащадок
to redefine	[ˌ riː dɪ 'faɪ n]	дати нове значення
a melting pot	['meltɪ ŋ ˌ pɔ t]	тигель, плавильний казан
to categorize	['kæ tə g(ə )raɪ z]	класифікувати
in particular	[pə 'tɪ kjulə ]	особливо
homogeneous	[ˌ hɔ mə 'ʤ iː nɪ ə s]	однорідний
Oriental	[ˌ ɔ ː rɪ 'ent(ə )l]	східний
predominantly	[prɪ 'dɔ mɪ nə ntlɪ ]	переважно
directly	[dɪ 'rektlɪ ]	прямо
the Hemisphere	['hemɪ sfɪ ə ]	півкуля
the Caribbean	[ˌ kæ rə 'biː ə n]	Карибські острови
abolishment	[ə 'bɔ lɪ ʃ mə nt]	відміна
an amendment	[ə 'mendmə nt]	поправка, доповнення
a riot	['raɪ ə t]	порушення громадського порядку, бунт
equal	['iː kwə l]	рівний
to belong to	[bɪ 'lɔ ŋ ]	належати
a regime	[reɪ 'ʒ iː m]	режим
mere	[mɪ ə ]	усього, лише