English Americans are Americans whose ancestry originates wholly or partly in England. According to the 2020 United States census, English Americans are the largest ethnic demographic in the United States with 46.6 million Americans self-identifying as having some English origins representing (19.8%) of the White American population. This includes 25,536,410 identified as predominantly or "English alone". Despite their status as the largest self-identified ancestral-origin group in the United States, demographers still regard the number of English Americans as an undercount. The term is distinct from British Americans, which includes not only English Americans but also others from the United Kingdom such as Scottish, Scotch-Irish, Welsh, Cornish, Manx Americans and Channel Islanders. In 1980, 49.6 million Americans claimed English ancestry. At 26.34%, this was the largest group amongst the 188 million people who reported at least one ancestry. The population was 226 million which would have made the English ancestry group 22% of the total. English immigrants in the 19th century, as with other groups, sought economic prosperity.