Just wondering because of something in a series...
Can most Americans swim or is it just a small percentage?
For me a weird concept as our country has so much water that all our children learn to swim at a very young age and if not, it is part of the school curriculum to have at least one year swimming lessons.
So to me being surrounded by water, fresh and ocean, is normal, as is being able to swim. My kids learnt to swim at a very young age, my daughter had 3 diplomas before she was 6 or 7. I even took her to baby swimming lessons when she was approx 2 months old.

When I had an American son in law, he had never seen the sea, which to me was weird, but he grew up in Colorado.
Not that you need the ocean to swim, we have an awful lot of fresh water here, rivers, lakes, canals, and so on. We're a 'water country'.
So I'm just wondering how many Americans can actually swim? Is it less than 50%?

You can learn to swim quickly when a shark is on your tail.

surrounded by the Great Lakes so all my kids swim

We went to the beach a lot when I was a kid, also went fishing a lot. But, I never learned how to swim.

I swim very well, I also scuba dive too

you do know we have an olympic swim team right?

At this point I think it would depend on age. When i was younger I spent my summers at the pool, lake, or river. Didn't see an ocean until I was 14 or 15, wouldnt swim in it cause it was cold as heck and the salt water felt gross. Pools are closing up all over the country because parents dont take their kids like they used to, or let their kids go alone like it was for me (in many places this is now child abuse). So it depends. My kids know how to swim but they too have spent time in the water. Not as much as I did as there are fewer public pools here in the south it seems.

Almost everyone I know, swims,
or does a reasonable facsimile of it.

I would think tis much higher than 50% Crystal..I do
not know anyone that cannot swim.

But I grew up on the California coast, everyone had a pool.

I remember my boy cousins at the lake, my uncle rowed them
out to the center and threw them in..they all made it
back to shore :-)

I don't understand why on earth someone would think that less than fifty percent of Americans can't swim.

Same here (as Soufie) growing up in California. I cannot remember NOT swimming, and finding the steps or ladder in a pool was taught at the same time as walking. I have always felt gratitude for my geographic fortune too......for the relationship I have with the ocean.

I have run into a (very) few American adults who cannot swim and it always amazed and saddened me. They without fail came from a background with little opportunity.......(which the concept saddens me on a global scale).

Most of the people i know have learned to swim.
For the ones who don't and completed high school in our area, i don't understand why they don't. It's part of the phys ed curriculum.

Maybe you can learn to read a posting and not make of it what you think?
And maybe also see when someone is interested in knowing more about your culture.
The reason I asked is quite simple: your country is vast and has areas where there isn't all that much water you can drown in and lots of land that isn't near the ocean. Then the urgency to learn to swim isn't as high as in a country like mine. It's called the Netherlands for a reason. Lots of water and half of our country is below sea-level.

Thank you everyone :)

I went swimming everyday as a kid in a pool, lake, creek etc. All my kids can swim. My oldest daughter likes the beach but the other 2 not so much. My youngest daughter will be going with her dad to the beach next month.

We swim alot in summer we are usually in the water most of it. Fishing and kayaking many camping and river trips. I guess it depends with some people.

Learned to swim before I was in first grade.. Swimming is what we looked forward to in the summer..

When my dad married my last step mom that was the first time I had been around anyone that could not swim..Not only did my step mom not know how to swim but all four step sisters did not know how to swim...

To this day they are the only ones I know that does not know how to swim..

Taught my kids in a back yard above ground pool before they were even Three....

All of my grand babies learned to swim before they were four on their own...

I used to swim in lakes and pools. In fact, I was on a swim team. My son learned to swim when he was a baby.

Even places, in the states, that aren't near lakes, oceans, etc....we have private and public pools.

I, actually, can't think of anyone that can't swim

Actually I looked it up, googled it. According to the American Red Cross about 50 percent of Americans can't swim, or swim well enough to pass a simple test. Growing up in a state bordered by two of the Great Lakes and filled with countless lakes and rivers, not to mention public pools, this really surprised me.

That data, like all other survey data is dependent on the number and range of the survey that was taken. If only 10 people from one community are asked and 6 of them respond that the can't pass the swimming test it doesn't mean that 60% of the nation can't pass a swimming test.
Personally, I was never actually tested or taight to swim till I joined the Navy. But, I was swimming since I was 5 years old.

While oceans and large bodies of water are not easily accessible, the US has a large abundance of rivers, lakes, ponds and streams. I know very few people in my lifetime that do not swim, have never went swimming.
Before I was 'taught' to swim by the Navy, I went swimming using my own method.
According to my own assessment based on my own experiences of people I have met, about 80% of people I have seen can swim. I suspect that number is higher because I haven't witnessed them in activities related to swimming.

geez..

50% of the households here in the Phoenix metro area have swimming pools in the back yards...which is around 4 million people

The US has two coasts and two oceans...

Americans dominate the swimming medals at the Olympics year after year...

we swim like dolphins..