Culture of the United States


The culture of the United States encompasses various social behaviors, institutions, and norms, including forms of speech, literature, music, visual arts, performing arts, food, sports, religion, law, technology, as well as other customs, beliefs, and forms of knowledge. American culture has been shaped by the history of the United States, its geography, and various internal and external forces and migrations.
America's foundations were initially Western-based, and primarily English-influenced, but also with prominent French, German, Greek, Irish, Italian, Scottish, Welsh, Jewish, Polish, Scandinavian, and Spanish regional influences. However, non-Western influences, including African and Indigenous cultures, and more recently, Asian cultures, have firmly established themselves in the fabric of American culture as well. Since the United States was established in 1776, its culture has been influenced by successive waves of immigrants, and the resulting "melting pot" of cultures has been a distinguishing feature of its society. Americans pioneered or made great strides in musical genres such as heavy metal, rhythm and blues, jazz, gospel, country, hip hop, and rock 'n' roll. The "big four sports" are American football, baseball, basketball, and ice hockey. In terms of religion, the majority of Americans are Protestant or Catholic, with a growing irreligious population. American cuisine includes popular tastes such as hot dogs, milkshakes, and barbecue, as well as many other class and regional preferences. The most commonly used language is English; while no law designates it official, a 2025 executive order declares English the official language. Distinct cultural regions include New England, Mid-Atlantic, the South, Midwest, Southwest, Mountain West, and Pacific Northwest.
Politically, the country takes its values from the American Revolution and American Enlightenment, with an emphasis on liberty, individualism, and limited government, as well as the Bill of Rights and Reconstruction Amendments. Under the First Amendment, the United States has the strongest protections of free speech of any country. American popular opinion is also the most supportive of free expression and the right to use the Internet. The large majority of the United States has a legal system that is based upon English common law. According to the Inglehart–Welzel cultural map, it leans greatly towards "self-expression values", while also uniquely blending aspects of "secular-rational" and "traditional" values together. Its culture can vary by factors such as region, race and ethnicity, age, religion, socio-economic status, or population density, among others. Different aspects of American culture can be thought of as low culture or high culture, or belonging to any of a variety of subcultures. The United States exerts major cultural influence on a global scale and is considered a cultural superpower.

History

Origins, development, and spread

The European roots of the United States originate with the English and Spanish settlers of colonial North America during British and Spanish rule. The varieties of English people, as opposed to the other peoples on the British Isles, were the overwhelming majority ethnic group in the 17th century and were 47.9% of percent of the total population of 3.9 million. They constituted 60% of the whites at the first census in 1790. The English ethnic group contributed to the major cultural and social mindset and attitudes that evolved into the American character. Of the total population in each colony, they numbered from 30% in Pennsylvania to 85% in Massachusetts. Large non-English immigrant populations from the 1720s to 1775, such as the Germans, Scotch Irish, added enriched and modified the English cultural substrate.
Jeffersonian democracy was a foundational American cultural innovation, which is still a core part of the country's identity. Thomas Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia was perhaps the first influential domestic cultural critique by an American and was written in reaction to the views of some influential Europeans that America's native flora and fauna were degenerate.
File:Betsy_Ross_sewing.jpg|thumb|left|200px|Betsy Ross was an American upholsterer who was credited by her relatives in 1870 with making the first American flag.
Non-indigenous cultural influences have been brought by historical immigration, especially from Germany in much of the country, Ireland and Italy in the Northeast, and Japan in Hawaii. Latin American culture is especially pronounced in former Spanish areas but has also been introduced by immigration, as have Asian American cultures. Caribbean culture has been increasingly introduced by immigration and is pronounced in many urban areas. Since the abolition of slavery, the Caribbean has been the source of the earliest and largest Black immigrant group, a significant source of growth of the Black population in the U.S. and has made major cultural impacts in education, music, sports and entertainment.
Indigenous cultures remains strong in both reservation and urban communities, including traditional government and communal organization of property now legally managed by Indian reservations. The fate of indigenous cultures after contact with Europeans is quite varied. For example, Taíno culture in U.S. Caribbean territories is undergoing cultural revitalization and, like many Native American languages, the Taíno language is no longer spoken. By contrast, the Hawaiian language and culture of the Native Hawaiians has survived in Hawaii alongside that of immigrants from the mainland U.S. and to some degree Asian immigrants. Indigenous Hawaiian influences on mainstream American culture include surfing and Hawaiian shirts. Most languages native to what is now U.S. territory are endangered.
File:Welcome to the land of freedom 51996u.jpg|thumb|275px|European immigrants arriving in New York City by ship in the late 19th century and early 20th century
American culture includes both conservative and liberal elements, scientific and religious competitiveness, political structures, risk taking and free expression, materialist and moral elements. Despite certain consistent ideological principles, American culture has a variety of expressions due to its geographical scale and demographics.
As a melting pot of cultures and ethnicities, the U.S. has been shaped by the world's largest immigrant population. The country is home to a wide variety of ethnic groups, traditions, and values, and exerts major cultural influence on a global scale, with the phenomenon being termed Americanization.

Regional variations

According to cultural geographer Colin Woodard there are as many as eleven cultural areas of the United States, which spring from their settlement history. In the east, from north to south: there are Puritan areas of New England which spread across the northern Great Lakes to the northern reaches of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers; the New Netherlands area in the densely populated New York metropolitan area; the Midland area which spread from Pennsylvania to the lower Great Lakes and the trans-Mississippi upper midwest; Greater Appalachia which angles from West Virginia through the lower midwest and upper-south to trans-Mississippi Arkansas, and southern Oklahoma; the Deep South from the Carolinas to Florida and west to Texas. In the west, there is the southwestern "El Norte" areas originally colonized by Spain, the "Left Coast" colonized quickly on the 19th century by a mix of Yankees and upper Appalachians, and the large but sparsely populated interior West.
The South is sometimes informally called the "Bible Belt" due to socially conservative evangelical Protestantism, which is a significant part of the region's culture. Christian church attendance across all denominations is generally higher there than the national average. This region is usually contrasted with the mainline Protestantism and Catholicism of the Northeast, the religiously diverse Midwest and Great Lakes, the Mormon Corridor in Utah and southern Idaho, and the relatively secular West. The percentage of non-religious people is the highest in the northeastern and New England state of Vermont at 34%, compared to 6% in the Bible Belt state of Alabama.
Strong cultural differences have a long history in the U.S., with the southern slave society in the antebellum period serving as a prime example. Social and economic tensions between the Northern and Southern states were so severe that they eventually caused the South to declare itself an independent nation, the Confederate States of America; thus initiating the American Civil War.

Cultures of regions in the United States

More than 300 languages nationwide, and up to 800 languages in New York City, besides English, have native speakers in the United States—some are spoken by indigenous peoples and others imported by immigrants. English is not the first language of most immigrants in the US, though many do arrive knowing how to speak it, especially from countries where English is broadly used. This not only includes immigrants from countries such as Canada, Jamaica, and the UK, where English is the primary language, but also countries where English is an official language, such as India, Nigeria, and the Philippines.
According to the 2000 census, there were nearly 30 million native speakers of Spanish in the United States. Spanish has official status in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, where it is the primary language spoken, and the state of New Mexico; numerous Spanish enclaves exist around the country as well.
LanguagePercentage of the total population
English only78.2%
Spanish13.4%
Chinese1.1%
Other7.3%