This is actually much larger and slower than the original. --JWB (talk) 21:09, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

It's too small, I can't read it... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.10.223.248 (talk) 20:58, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Androscoggin county, Maine, is spelled wrong in the legend. Chriscrutch (talk) 05:20, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Why is this here if it can't be seen? I can't read anything on it, at all, the text is garbled, why is a larger source image not in place when one is available? Revrant (talk) 01:57, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

The original image used to be very large, obviously something has happened, hopefully someone can restore the original. Zarcadia (talk) 14:42, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Chester and Lawrence Counties are colored as German when they have Irish and Italian, respectively, as pluralities. Check the county pages under "demographics."---Heff01 (talk) 17:47, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Were they wrong in the earlier versions of this file? If not, were they wrong in the .jpg or other image the .svg was created from? --JWB (talk) 19:47, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

The legend text is far too small to read, and the colors not are differentiated enough since it took me several minutes to realize the map called me "Irish" and not "Irani". Is there a larger version of this map that can be magnified? 71.234.215.133 (talk) 12:29, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

American ancestry:

My father was born in Ohio with a distinctly English surname

My mother was born in Rhode Island with a French derivative surname

My siblings were born in a part of California that this map says is Mexican

I was born in a part of Connecticut that is "Irish"

My siblings' children were born in the same part of CT that I was - according to the map, an Irish part

What is the point of this map? I am a native Connecticteer. People I grew up with spoke French (Little Canada) or Italian, not Irish, as a second language (although the occasional St Patrick Cathedral still survives). What possible relevance does the "Ancestries by country" truly hold? 71.234.215.133 (talk) 12:46, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. I'll bet the data are obtained by asking people on census forms to list their pre-American origins or something similar. If so, it becomes a meaningless excersize based on family myth and personal preference. If the map is to be believed America would be speaking German, not English! Also, there is a Norwegian, but no Swedish category, yet far more Swedes than Norwegians emigrated to the US. Pointless 1812ahill (talk) 18:37, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Standard census procedure is that if someone puts down something like English-French-Norwegian-Irish, the census only counts the first term given (here "English")... AnonMoos (talk) 19:43, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Very few Irish immigrants spoke "Irish" in the first place - My Irish ancestors didn't. If you're not aware, English (and later British) rule in Ireland restricted use of the Irish Gaelic language in society, with all but a small isolated fringe on the western coast switching to English as their primary tongue in recent centuries. Since independence there's been a push to revive Irish Gaelic in schools, but English remains dominant and certainly was the main language spoken by Irish immigrants in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Questioning ancestry based on language in such a way is akin to questioning whether or not African Americans are the largest ethnic group in some rural county of Mississippi despite the lack of Swahili, Yoruba, and Zulu speakers there.

This map may not seem important to you because you're only looking at the present and the future. The past, however, shapes both the present and the future, and knowing where people came from can help you understand society better. For example, an above comment suggests that these results should highlight German as the dominant language in this country, not English. This shows a profound ignorance of German American history, during which many families of German origin shed their old country language, customs, and even surnames in favor of Anglo-American ways as a response to anti-German backlash during the two World Wars. Also, the reason English ancestry is under-reported is due to the status of English Americans as the 'norm' in the foundation of the United States population, against which everyone else defines themselves. Many in the northern states probably downplay their small percentage of distant English ancestry in favor of more recent, more distinctive ancestries. Many in the southern states disregard their far-removed English, Scottish, and Scotch-Irish heritage, resulting in the large cluster around the Appalachians that refers to itself as "American" only. Many others are unaware of their own ancestry, excepting the Utah with its large genealogy-interested population of Latter Day Saints practitioners. More than anything else, knowing your ancestry is simply interesting for many people, as is the idea of connecting yourself to a cultural identity, and why demand a larger significance than that? --98.114.176.218 (talk) 07:50, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

If I might add, as a color blind person, it is nearly impossible for me to distinguish what ethnicities are what because of the similar shades of blue. More differing colors should be used. --98.221.91.6 (talk) 02:49, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Also, the purple in oregon does not match any color on the legend Whiterussian19 (talk) 02:17, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

new results still not available? --194.25.204.171 (talk) 09:53, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the 2010 Census avoided the question of ancestry, except in the cases of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (can select from several of the more numerous ethnic groups, or write in "some other"), Hispanic Americans (ditto), and Native Americans (can write in tribal affiliation). Americans of European, African, and Middle Eastern descent are not distinguished - Irish, Greek, Finnish, Moroccan, and Iranian are all simply lumped together as "white," while African American, Gullah, Jamaican, Barbadian, Ethiopian, and Ghanaian are all subsumed as "black". Even those individual ancestries that are recorded are not comparable - Hispanic origins are recorded separately from race altogether, while the various Asian and Pacific Islander groups are treated as separate races in and of themselves on the same level as "white" and "black". We'll have to wait for the next American Community Survey for at least part of the picture. --98.114.176.218 (talk) 06:29, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

This present map (Sun. 09-Sep-2012) utterly fails to reflect reality. Perhaps it is not the right map from the Census? It needs to be replaced, or — if there really isn't anything more clearly representative of the country's true local demographics, than just whatever single group appears to have a plurality under the flawed terminology of the questionnaire — just dispensed with.

As of, I believe it was, the 1990 census, the big surprise being circulated on newscasts & the like was that a roughly equal number of Americans reported being of German descent to the number which claimed English origins. Those were the top two (which they have been for a long time), and no way have the demographics changed so much in such a short time. It's not the answers to the questionnaire, though, which have changed; it is the questions which have skewed the data; so I suggest, nearly dumfounded, that we may well need a better map than can be provided by the US Census.

I wonder who had the brilliant idea to offer "(white) American" as an origin, separate from English, German, Irish, and all the other mainly European origins that have now come to be optionally masked behind this catch-all category...? Whoever it was, they've done a real disservice to all Americans who want to understand their nation's mix of external origins (i.e., origins in addition to those of true native American stock, the peoples whose ancestors have been here for thousands of years). Only people who really had no clue as to their ancestry should've been given any option to choose among categories like "unknown European" or "unknown non-European Caucasian", each of which would've been much less disastrous than "(white) American". (Perhaps a couple of non-white "unknown" categories would've been in order as well; the point here is not at all to focus on race, but to get a clearer picture of where Americans have come from, or at least believe they have come from — not a more blurred one.) Obviously, this Origins question's purpose is to show us where people's ancestors came from — which would be outside the USA, for all but native American groups — and offering respondents a category like "(white) American" was the bumbling equivalent to pure sabotage against that objective.

What has happened here (approximately... actually only one of the evident problems...) seems pretty clear: White people who really were unsure of their origins outside the United States, or who for some reason felt uncomfortable describing themselves as being of some particular "foreign" origin like English or Scots or Welsh or Irish or Italian or Greek or Czech or Norwegian or Swedish or Bosnian or you-name-it, opted for the uninformative, disinformative anti-category of (white) "American". What this does — all over the map, not just in places where you see that "category" represented — is divide the representation of large populations of normally self-identifying English- or Irish-descended people (and various others...) between those actual categories of origin, on the one hand, and the non-origin of (white) "American", on the other. One effect for sure is that large areas that should have indicated some of these other national origins — in particular English, as it has long been rivaled only by German, even in recent years — have defaulted to the next-largest category (frequently German), since the largest groups have wound up splitting themselves between their actual known origins and "American". The result, as anyone who has ever experienced the heartbreak of seeing a third-party candidate split the votes of what would otherwise have been their own united constituency can attest, is the awarding of a distinction that would normally go to the Majority to a mere Plurality. (And that's nothing against people of German heritage, or any other group: It just makes for a misleading presentation of America's genealogical make-up.)

(I admit, the preceding paragraph still does not explain why the longtime second-largest group, the self-identifying Germans, would have "stuck together" so well. I have a theory, though, that many Americans of largely English ancestry may have skipped over the English names in their family trees, choosing to report instead the nationalities which figure secondarily, because they thought of the English part as "plain" or neutral, and not expressive enough of some nationality coming from outside the U.S. . Got some Irish ancestors too? Got a story in your family that a given English surname is originally French? Well then, say you are Irish or French. Meanwhile, people with German last names figuring prominently in their ancestry seem less likely to see those names as bland and devoid of definition. — But I digress: This parenthetical portion speaks to a problem with all surveys that ask folks to self-identify their ancestry.)

I admit that the siphoning off of true nationalities of origin into "American" seems unlikely to be the entire cause of this map's weirdness. Would, in particular, most Americans of mainly English descent suddenly have decided to go incognito like that? Shouldn't there still be at least a strong showing of pluralities with English ancestry scattered out across this map, if for some reason not quite so boldly anymore as those of German origin? And does it seem right to you that a plurality in such a sweeping, massive block of the country could suddenly have surfaced to self-identify as German? — Whole states, or nearly so, stretching well beyond Pennsylvania and the upper Midwest! It's just too overwhelmingly perfect, and defies all experience.

Similarly, as someone from Texas pointed out above, there is something wrong with some of these huge blocks suggesting something like Mexican-descended majorities (pluralities): To offer another clear example of this overreach (i.e. in addition to that person's citation of west Texas), I'd like to point out that San Francisco and the whole greater Silicon Valley are shown to be more decisively of Mexican ancestry than any other background — which, to anyone who has spent time there, is preposterous! Granted, the sea of European-looking faces (not to overlook those of East Asian appearance, and South Asian, and African) which one encounters there represent a whole array of national origins; but the point is that a map which acknowledges only the putative plurality of Mexican Americans, who deserve recognition but are a definitive minority, in that entire area of California, is an utter failure of a demographics map.

Maybe we can do no better...? — But I would think that surely we can. And if not... Better no map at all, than one which misleads so staggeringly. IfYouDoIfYouDon't (talk) 11:37, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

If the counties were further divided into smaller divisions, maybe a more accurate depiction of the demographics could be shown, rather than the generalized/averaged and semi-useless one we have now. Or maybe we could use local city census data, if that even exists? The demographics of the US are so varied, I don't think any other nation has dealt with the costs and burdens of such a project anyways (or at least not yet; taking a comprehensive and accurate census in India and China is probably a pain in the a**). For a more reasonably accurate ancestry census, the US government will have to undergo a massive, specific project with the goal of researching and recording the genealogy and ancestry data. And if universities also helped with the project, we could have a pretty comprehensive study and compilation. Then again, this would only happen if more of the US budget is allocated for R&D and education, but that's probably not going to happen soon. As it is now, this chart is quite unhelpful.

This map of West Texas is absolutely wrong. There were no more than 300,000 Mexicans in the Whole Texas Area in the 1970's meaning Wiki and especially the Census Bureau are reporting fraud.....this map is absolutely far, far from the truth...We rarely even saw any Mexiacns in all of West Texas except the Davis Moun tains and south or toward El Paso. Additionally, other areas asuch as New Mexciao were filled with American Indians NOT Mexicans. There were no Mexicans that we ever saw in New Mexico, only American Indians. This apparently is a gross oversight of the Census Bureau to suggest that American Indians had anything to do with Mexico. America needs to speak up and correct ALL that is wrong with the Census Bureau who has determined that all races are intertwined.09-03-2012 Indigenous American 09-03-2012 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.54.86.158 (talk) 02:12, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Mexicans are no majority over european ancestors in California or Texas, but if you spread white non-mexican americans in german, italian, english, etc. ancestors, then mexicans are really majority.

It's real that many of the white americans are of german descendant, many of them inmigrated during the late 1800s to the US and were used to settle in the middle lands.

The point of this map is to show the dynamics of the most important migrations, its bases are statistics not asking your friends or neighbours where are their ancestors from.

And before getting any attacks because of my misspelling, I beg you pardon for my bad english. Greetings. --Herr Queso (talk) 12:15, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Your English is fine. In any case (unrelated to you comment), Mexicans don't "own" the land anymore than white Americans do. The land should've stayed as the land of the indigenous peoples who were already there, and not through colonization/forced assimilation. It's only the colonists and colonialist imperials that caused all this in the first place. Man, half the Mexicans are like mixed mutts anyways. Same with much of the white Americans and those who identify as "American" ancestry, whatever that means. Also, these ancestries are man-made labels to identify groups and for them to distinguish between each other. Who wonders what course of history might have taken place had Columbus and his men never made it back to Spain. Maybe there could've been some real "American" nations. 68.228.68.106 (talk) 06:45, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

It should be added that the title of this very interesting chart is Top-US-Ancestries - no mention of majorities anywhere. Nobody is saying that Mexicans are a majority in California merely a plurality. If 30% are Mexican, 25% English, 25% German, 15% black, 5% other then the Mexican group is the plurality. I like this chart as, for the rest of the world, it's fascinating. It amazes me how much Americans care about their backgrounds. Just look at the opening paragraphs of any article about an American and it nearly always tells you about the background of their parents. Not so for most articles about us Brits for example where this kind of trivia is considered irrelevant or intrusive.--XANIA - ЗAНИA^{Wikipedia talk | Wikibooks talk} 22:37, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Just saying. T.W. (talk) 17:22, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Its an SVG file so you can zoom in without distortion. Ctrl + zooms in on firefox. You can read everything clearly now. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.161.33.144 (talk) 22:48, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Since this map is mainly illustrating the ethnic groups/nationalities of people before they, or their ancestors, became American citizens, what then is the definition of 'American' which is one of the dominant groups in the South-East according to this map (tan)? Clearly its not American Indian since that's another color altogether. Is it just a habit of southern censuses to ignore pre-American heritage?

Please help, I'm confused. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.161.33.144 (talk) 23:03, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

I'd say it's a mix of those who don't know, those who believe themselves to be American more than anything else (patriotism?) and those who are too much of a mix of ethnicities to claim any one more than others. --XANIA - ЗAНИA^{Wikipedia talk | Wikibooks talk} 22:39, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

It's just people who answered "American" and nothing else on the 2000 census. Guessing at the specific reason they chose to do so is WP:OR — Preceding unsigned comment added by Charlotte Aryanne (talk • contribs) 01:28, 9 November 2014 (UTC)