The culture of the United States encompasses various social behaviors, institutions, and norms, including forms of speech, literature, music, visual arts, performing arts, food, sports, religion, law, technology, as well as other customs, beliefs, and forms of knowledge. American culture has been shaped by the history of the United States, its geography, and various internal and external forces and migrations.

America's foundations were initially Western-based, and primarily English-influenced, but also with prominent French, German, Greek, Irish, Italian, Scottish, Welsh, Jewish, Polish, Scandinavian, and Spanish regional influences. However, non-Western influences, including African and Indigenous cultures, and more recently, Asian cultures, have firmly established themselves in the fabric of American culture as well. Since the United States was established in 1776, its culture has been influenced by successive waves of immigrants, and the resulting "melting pot" of cultures has been a distinguishing feature of its society. Americans pioneered or made great strides in musical genres such as heavy metal, rhythm and blues, jazz, gospel, country, hip hop, and rock 'n' roll. The "big four sports" are American football, baseball, basketball, and ice hockey. In terms of religion, the majority of Americans are Protestant or Catholic, with a growing irreligious population. American cuisine includes popular tastes such as hot dogs, milkshakes, and barbecue, as well as many other class and regional preferences. The most commonly used language is English; while no law making it the official language exists, a 2025 executive order declares English the official language. Distinct cultural regions include New England, Mid-Atlantic, the South, Midwest, Southwest, Mountain West, and Pacific Northwest.

Politically, the country takes its values from the American Revolution and American Enlightenment, with an emphasis on liberty, individualism, and limited government, as well as the Bill of Rights and Reconstruction Amendments. Under the First Amendment, the United States has the strongest protections of free speech of any country. American popular opinion is also the most supportive of free expression and the right to use the Internet. The large majority of the United States has a legal system that is based upon English common law. According to the Inglehart–Welzel cultural map, it leans greatly towards "self-expression values", while also uniquely blending aspects of "secular-rational" (with a strong emphasis on human rights, the individual, and anti-authoritarianism) and "traditional" (with high fertility rates, religiosity, and patriotism) values together. Its culture can vary by factors such as region, race and ethnicity, age, religion, socio-economic status, or population density, among others. Different aspects of American culture can be thought of as low culture or high culture, or belonging to any of a variety of subcultures. The United States exerts major cultural influence on a global scale and is considered a cultural superpower.

The European roots of the United States originate with the English and Spanish settlers of colonial North America during British and Spanish rule. The varieties of English people, as opposed to the other peoples on the British Isles, were the overwhelming majority ethnic group in the 17th century (the population of the colonies in 1700 was 250,000) and were 47.9% of percent of the total population of 3.9 million. They constituted 60% of the whites at the first census in 1790 (%: 3.5 Welsh, 8.5 Scotch Irish, 4.3 Scots, 4.7 Irish, 7.2 German, 2.7 Dutch, 1.7 French, and 2 Swedish). The English ethnic group contributed to the major cultural and social mindset and attitudes that evolved into the American character. Of the total population in each colony, they numbered from 30% in Pennsylvania to 85% in Massachusetts. Large non-English immigrant populations from the 1720s to 1775, such as the Germans (100,000 or more), Scotch Irish (250,000), added enriched and modified the English cultural substrate.

Jeffersonian democracy was a foundational American cultural innovation, which is still a core part of the country's identity. Thomas Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia was perhaps the first influential domestic cultural critique by an American and was written in reaction to the views of some influential Europeans that America's native flora and fauna (including humans) were degenerate.

Non-indigenous cultural influences have been brought by historical immigration, especially from Germany in much of the country, Ireland and Italy in the Northeast, and Japan in Hawaii. Latin American culture is especially pronounced in former Spanish areas but has also been introduced by immigration, as have Asian American cultures (especially in the Northeast and West Coast regions). Caribbean culture has been increasingly introduced by immigration and is pronounced in many urban areas. Since the abolition of slavery, the Caribbean has been the source of the earliest and largest Black immigrant group, a significant source of growth of the Black population in the U.S. and has made major cultural impacts in education, music, sports and entertainment.

Indigenous cultures remains strong in both reservation and urban communities, including traditional government and communal organization of property now legally managed by Indian reservations (large reservations are mostly in the West, especially Oklahoma, Arizona and South Dakota). The fate of indigenous cultures after contact with Europeans is quite varied. For example, Taíno culture in U.S. Caribbean territories is undergoing cultural revitalization and, like many Native American languages, the Taíno language is no longer spoken. By contrast, the Hawaiian language and culture of the Native Hawaiians has survived in Hawaii alongside that of immigrants from the mainland U.S. (starting before the 1898 annexation) and to some degree Asian immigrants. Indigenous Hawaiian influences on mainstream American culture include surfing and Hawaiian shirts. Most languages native to what is now U.S. territory are endangered.

American culture includes both conservative and liberal elements, scientific and religious competitiveness, political structures, risk taking and free expression, materialist and moral elements. Despite certain consistent ideological principles (e.g. individualism, egalitarianism, and faith in freedom and republicanism), American culture has a variety of expressions due to its geographical scale and demographics.