America's Biggest Ancestry Groups — Mapped

America without immigrants would be a very different place than it is today.

Inverse partnered with Esri to map the biggest ancestry groups in the country, taking five-year estimates from the 2015 American Community Survey.

From 46 million German-Americans, including President Donald Trump, to 1.8 million Arab-Americans — and many groups numbering in the hundreds of thousands, or more — there are, simply said, a lot of immigrants. And while each group has faced controversy at times, these maps show how they’ve all become integral parts of a patchwork nation.

We’ve mapped the 25 largest ancestry groups below, with people who claim multiple ancestries also included. Since the responses are open-ended, there are separate listings for things like English and British. We’ve also included a few maps of ethnic groups, which the ACS tracks separately.

This is what a melting pot looks like.

German-Americans are the largest listed group at 46.4 million. This population is most prominent in the Midwest.

Irish-Americans number 33.5 million. They are most prominent in the Northeast.

English-Americans number 24.8 million. They are big in Utah and on the East Coast.

Italian-Americans number 17.3 million. They are most prominent in the Northeast.

Polish-Americans number 9.4 million. They live mostly around the Great Lakes and in the Northeast.

French-Americans (excluding Basque) number 8.3 million. They are most prominent in New England and New Orleans.

Scottish-Americans number 5.4 million. They are found all over.

Norwegian-Americans number 4.4 million. They are clustered in the Midwest and the Northwest.

Dutch-Americans number 4.3 million. They are most prominent in the Midwest, especially in Michigan.

Swedish-Americans number 3.9 million. They are found mostly in the Midwest and the Northwest.

European-Americans number 3.8 million. (Note, again, these are people who use that label — and not a more specific label — to describe their ancestry). They are all over the place.

3.1 million Americans listed Sub-Saharan African ancestry. They are clustered in big cities around the country.

Scotch-Irish-Americans number 3.0 million. They are most prominent in the Southeast.

Russian-Americans number 2.8 million. They are most prominent in New York and Florida.

West-Indian Americans number 2.8 million. They are clustered around New York, Boston, Miami, and Orlando.

French-Canadian Americans number 2.1 million. They are found mostly in New England and New Orleans.

Arab-Americans number 1.8 million. They are most prominent in big cities around the country.

Welsh-Americans number 1.8 million. Hotspots include Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Utah.

Czech-Americans number 1.5 million. They are most prominent in the middle of the country, from Minnesota to Texas.

Hungarian-Americans number 1.4 million. They are most concentrated in the Rust Belt.

Portuguese-Americans number 1.4 million. They are concentrated around Boston and San Francisco.

British-Americans number 1.3 million. They are found all over.

Greek-Americans number 1.3 million. They are concentrated in New York, Chicago, and Boston.

Ukranian-Americans number 1 million. They are concentrated in big cities in the Northeast, Midwest, and West.

A lot of people don’t fit into traditional ancestral categories. Case in point:

22.7 million Americans listed American as their ancestry. This category (which is different from the Native American ethnic group) is most prominent in the Southeast.

Then there are ethnicities, which the ACS tracks separately. Below, we’ve mapped estimates for various ethnicities, including people who claim more than one ethnicity. (We left off white people since they are well captured in the ancestry maps.)

Hispanic-Americans number 54.2 million. They’re most prominent in the Southwest and big cities around the country.

African-Americans number 46.3 million. They’re most prominent east of Mississippi.

Asian-Americans number 21 million. They are most prominent in big cities.

Native Americans number 6.6 million. They are most prominent in Alaska and scattered regions around the continental U.S.

Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islanders in America number 1.5 million. They are most prominent on the West Coast and, of course, Hawaii.