The US population today is about 310 million people. This is the third place in the world, after China and India (1.33 billion and 1.18 billion people, respectively). And the history of the formation of the composition of the population of this country can be attributed to a rather sad one.
The fact is that during the development of these lands by the European race, a large number of indigenous people, the Indians, perished. It is estimated that on the American continent, as a result of hostilities, illnesses, and physical extermination, many millions of representatives of various Native American ethnic groups could die.
Experts believe that before the invasion of Europeans in America, the number of Indians could reach 20, or even 40 million. About 15 million indigenous people were destroyed in Spanish possessions for refusing to work on plantations. During the development of farms, immigrants needed new lands, as a result of which tribes of hunting Indians were actively oppressed and resettled. The Indian population on the continent has recovered to that which was in pre-Columbian America only in the 50s of the 20th century. Nowadays, about 200, 000 Indians live in the United States, mainly on reservations. It is interesting to note that the population that once owned the whole of America today is not particularly allowed in political and social activities in this country.
In the 16th century, the US population was actively replenished with blacks - slaves, who were imported in large numbers into this country and adjacent territories for more than three centuries. Today they make up about 15% of the population and include African Americans and mulattos.
After the Civil War, which resulted in the abolition of slavery, the US population began to increase due to immigrants from Asia and Europe. However, this process slowed down in the 20th century due to several world wars. It is assumed that today most of the population are those whose ancestors came from the Old World, Australia, Canada, in second place are representatives of the African-American direction, in the third place are Asians, in the fourth are Indians, and in fifth are the peoples of islands located in the Pacific Ocean. The rating is completed by other peoples and races, whose share in the total population is about 1.7 percent.
Note that the population in the United States is an approximate value, as is its composition, because, for example, in this state there are about 5 million unemployed who move around the country and are not always subject to registration. In addition, it is impossible to say for sure that the “white population” is 80%, as indicated in official statistics, as In the USA, there is an active, including illegal, migration from Latin America and other regions.
The United States, with a population of more than one third billion, has an impressive proportion of people who were not born on the territory of this state. According to the mid-10s of the 21st century (2005), their share is about 10 percent, of which eleven million people were born in Mexico, about five million were born in Europe and about 1.5 million were born in India or China. The US population is growing at about 0.9% per year, mainly due to representatives of Latin American and African American nationalities.
