Indian Americans or Indo-Americans are Americans whose ancestry belongs to any of the many ethnic groups of the Republic of India. As the most socio-economically successful ethnic group in the U.S., Indian Americans comprise 3.1 million people, representing around 1% of the U.S. population as of 2013. Indian Americans are the second-largest self-reported single-race Asian ancestry group after Chinese Americans, and the country's third-largest Asian group alone or in combination with other races after Chinese Americans and Filipino Americans, according to 2013 American Community Survey data. The U.S. Census Bureau uses the term Asian Indian to avoid confusion with the indigenous peoples of the Americas commonly referred to as American Indians.
In the Americs, historically, Indian has been most commonly used to refer to the indigenous people. Qualifying terms such as American Indian and East Indian were and are commonly used to avoid ambiguity. Indian Americans are categorized as Asian Indian (and more broadly, Asian American) by the United States Census Bureau.