High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! A Polish American (Polish: Amerykanin polskiego pochodzenia), is a citizen of the United States of Polish descent. There are an estimated 9-10 million Polish Americans, representing about 3.2% of the population of the United States. The first Poles in North America arrived in the Virginia Colony in 1608. Early Polish immigrants of note included Jacob Sodowski, Kazimierz Pu aski and Tadeusz Ko ciuszko, who were active in America around the time of the Revolutionary War. Overall, more than one million Poles immigrated to the United States, primarily during the late 19th and early 20th century. Exact immigration numbers are unknown. Due to the partitions of Poland, the Polish state did not exist at the time, when the precursor to the Immigration and Naturalization Service classified immigrants, according to country of origin, rather than to ethnicity. In particular, the three partitions gave rise to the terms Russian, German and Austrian Poles, as seen in the context of Polish immigration to the United States.