An Italian American is a U.S. citizen of Italian descent. It may mean someone born in the United States with Italian parents or grandparents or someone born in Italy who moved to the United States. The largest group of Italians moved to the United States in the early 1900s; two million moved between 1900 to 1914. Only Irish and Germans moved to the United States in bigger numbers. In 2000 the government counted 15.6 million Italian Americans in the United States. This means that in the year 2000, for every 1000 Americans, 56 of them were Italian Americans.