In the 2000 census, the country had 31 ethnic groups with at least one million members each, with numerous others represented in smaller amounts. By the federal government's categorization of race, most Americans (80.4% in 2004) are white. These white Americans are mostly European Americans—the descendants of European immigrants to the United States—along with some non-Europeans counted as white in government nomenclature (those with origins in the original peoples of the Middle East and North Africa). To the exclusion of Hispanic-origin European Americans, non-Hispanic whites constituted 67.4% of the population. The non-Hispanic white population is proportionally declining, because of both immigration by, and a higher birth rate among, ethnic and racial minorities. The largest ethnic group of European ancestry is German at 15.2%, followed by Irish (10.8%), English (8.7%), Italian (5.6%) and Scandinavian (3.7%). Many immigrants also hail from Slavic countries, such as Poland and Russia, as well as from French Canada.[83] African Americans, or Blacks, largely descend from Africans who arrived as slaves during the 17th through 19th centuries, and number about 35 million or 12.9% of the population.