Why would you think swimming isn’t a cultural thing in the US? Municipal pools are everywhere across the US - and practically a staple for southwest residences. The US produces some of the world’s greatest swimmers. It’s a part of school curriculum and while we don’t really have swimmable canal cities (like most of North America) there are plenty of opportunities to enjoy swimming.
From my experience, where I live (relatively affluent state, with Lake Michigan shoreline), it's highly regional who knows how to swim and who doesn't. People who grew up far south - not so much. Poorer folks - not so much.
I always find it weird when people don't know how to swim (being where I am from, born when I was born, etc.), so I've definitely noticed there's certain segments of society who tend not to know. What I do know is lots of people don't know how to swim.
Now - unrelated to my original post. I know a lot about the local river systems in our major cities. I wouldn't swim in even the bodies of water that look and smell nice (most don't). Actually, the rivers which don't look and smell nice are sometimes safer than the ones that do.
I think for some reason USA has quite big percentage of people who cant swim. Compared to some countries where its part of mandatory education and thus the % is much lower.
~80% of the US claims to be able to swim, though I've found some sources that say only ~60% have the "five basic swimming skills," but they don't seem to provide any details around how they determined that vs. the people self reporting the ability to swim.
I'm not even finding consistent details on what the 5 skills even are, though being able to get into the water, float, tread water, perform some sort of basic swimming stroke, and get out of the water were probably the most numerous.
I don't see how someone could claim they could swim and not be thinking of all of those things, though.
I don't remember the details of basic swimming tests but that sounds about right. The bottom line is that if you end up in the water within sight of shore under normal conditions you shouldn't panic or drown. I can easily believe 60-80% depending on the criteria. I haven't swum regularly for years and was never a real distance swimmer but I can swim by any reasonable measure.
It used to be pretty common for US schools to have a pool (often in the basement!) and teach swimming, but seems to have gotten less-so over time, I suppose because of the cost, and pressure from increasing costs in other areas.
I attended a couple schools that had pools in the basement that had been closed for a decade or more, and have heard of several others. The only one I know of that was still operational was in an old private school.
