The size of the US population and the history of its formation

The population of the United States 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 composition of the population of this country can be attributed to the rather sad.

The fact is that the development of these lands by the European race killed a large number of indigenous people - the Indians. It is assumed that many millions of representatives of different Indian nationalities could perish in the American continent as a result of military actions, diseases and physical extermination.

Experts believe that before the invasion of Europeans in America, the number of Indians could reach 20, and even 40 million. In the Spanish possessions were destroyed about 15 million indigenous people for the fact that they refused to work on plantations. During the development of farms, the settlers needed new land, as a result of which the tribes of Indian hunters were actively oppressed and resettled. The Indian population on the continent has recovered to the one that was in pre-Columbian America only in the 50s of the 20th century. Today, in the United States, mostly on reservations, there are about 200,000 Indians. It is interesting to note that the population that once owned the whole of America today is not particularly allowed for political and public activities in this country.

In the 16th century, the US population was actively replenished by Negro slaves, who were brought in large quantities to this country and to neighboring territories for more than three centuries. Today they make up about 15% of the population and include African Americans and mulattoes.

After the Civil War, which resulted in the abolition of slavery, the US population began to increase at the expense of immigrants from Asia and Europe. However, this process slowed down in the 20th century due to several world wars. It is assumed that today the majority of the population are those whose ancestors came from the Old World, Australia, Canada, in second place - representatives of the African-American direction, the third Asians, the fourth - the Indians, the fifth - the people of the 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 accountable. In addition, it can not be said for sure that the "white population" is 80%, as indicated in official statistics, since In the United States, there is active, including illegal, migration from Latin America and other regions.

The United States, with a population of more than a third of a billion, has an impressive proportion of its population who were not born in the territory of that 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 increases by about 0.9% per year, mainly due to representatives of Latin American and African American ethnic groups.