Demographics

The United States population is projected by the U.S. Census Bureau to be 306,414,000,including an estimated 11.2 million illegal immigrants.The United States is the third most populous nation in the world, after China and India. Its population growth rate is 0.89%,compared to the European Union's 0.16%. The birth rate of 14.16 per 1,000, 30% below the world average, is higher than any European country's except Albania and Ireland. In fiscal year 2008, 1.1 million immigrants were granted legal residence.Mexico has been the leading source of new residents for over two decades; since 1998, China, India, and the Philippines have been in the top four sending countries every year.The United States is the only industrialized nation in which large population increases are projected.

The United States has a very diverse population—thirty-one ancestry groups have more than a million members. White Americans are the largest racial group, with German Americans, Irish Americans, and English Americans constituting three of the country's four largest ancestry groups. African Americans are the nation's largest racial minorityand third largest ancestry group. Asian Americans are the country's second largest racial minority; the two largest Asian American ancestry groups are Chinese andFilipino.In 2007, the U.S. population included an estimated 4.5 million people with some American Indian or Alaskan native ancestry (2.9 million exclusively of such ancestry) and over 1 million with some native Hawaiian or Pacific island ancestry (0.5 million exclusively).