North America’s ethnic composition is unlike anywhere else. Native peoples lived here for millennia before ships arrived from Europe in the 1600s. Mexicans moved northward. Asians came across the Pacific. Slave ships forcibly brought millions of Africans. This map, created by @geodatarankings, shows what people reported when asked about their ancestry.
Twenty-one states are German. From Pennsylvania to Oregon, the Midwest runs German. Wisconsin. Oregon. Montana. Wyoming. Colorado. Both Dakotas. Nebraska. Kansas. Minnesota. Iowa. Missouri. Illinois. Indiana. Michigan. Ohio. Pennsylvania. West Virginia. Florida. Alaska. Forty-one million Americans say German, which is 12% of everyone. Wisconsin comes in at 36%. North Dakota hits 34%, South Dakota 32%.
Most fled Europe in the 1800s when revolutions collapsed and economies failed. They brought beer brewing, Christmas trees, kindergarten, hamburgers, hot dogs.
Five Southwest states go Mexican. California. Nevada. Arizona. New Mexico. Texas. That’s 11% of the US population.
Nine Southern states are African American. Arkansas. Louisiana. Mississippi. Alabama. Georgia. South Carolina. North Carolina. Virginia. Maryland. DC. These were the heaviest slavery states.
Three states report English. Idaho. Utah. Maine. English converts to Mormonism settled Utah during the 1800s.
Oklahoma is American Indian. The only state where Native ancestry leads.
Kentucky and Tennessee just say “United States.” Families there have been around so long Europe seems irrelevant.
Three Northeast states are Italian. New York. Connecticut. New Jersey. About 18 million Americans report Italian ancestry. Connecticut reaches 15.2%, Rhode Island 14.6%, New Jersey 13.4%. Southern Italians came between 1880 and 1920. Sicily, Campania, Calabria sent the most people. They worked factories and construction sites, dug subway tunnels, built skyscrapers.
Five New England states go Irish. Vermont. New Hampshire. Massachusetts. Rhode Island. Delaware. About 11% of Americans say Irish, which actually outnumbers Ireland’s population of 5 million today. The 1840s potato famine caused the exodus.
Hawaii reports Filipino. The only state with Asian ancestry on top. Filipino workers came for the sugar plantations around 1900.
This comes from what people told census workers. Some listed multiple ancestries. Others just wrote “American.”
This is ridiculous and frankly offensive. What is the source of the data? The “article” claims census data but doesn’t mention the year. If this is even true it is impossible to have Hawaii, Alaska, and even Arizona or Maine before the US civil war era, and there was near zero Irish emigration before that. The whole map is gibberish. Misinformation.
This is ridiculous and frankly offensive. What is the source of the data? The “article” claims census data but doesn’t mention the year. If this is even true it is impossible to have Hawaii, Alaska, and even Arizona or Maine before the US civil war era, and there was near zero Irish emigration before that. The whole map is gibberish. Misinformation.