History: North America and Central America

In the United States, the earliest saunas were Swedish bastus in the colony New Sweden around the Delaware River. Today sauna culture enjoys its greatest popularity in the Lake Superior Region, specifically the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, especially the Keweenaw Peninsula, and parts of Minnesota,Wisconsin, and Iowa, which are home to large populations of Swedish and particularly Finnish Americans. Duluth, Minnesota, at its peak, had as many as 14 public saunas. Indeed, among Finnish farms in Great Lakes "sauna country", the cultural geographer Matti Kaups, found that 90% had sauna structures-more even than the farms in Finland. Elsewhere, sauna facilities are normally provided at health clubs and at hotels, but there is no tradition or ritual to their use, and many people fail to appreciate their benefits. To avoid liability, many saunas operate at only moderate temperatures and do not allow pouring water on the rocks. A wider range of sauna etiquette is usually acceptable in the United States compared to other countries, with the exception that most mixed-sex saunas usually require some clothing such as a bathing suit to be worn. These are uncommon, however, as most saunas are either small private rooms or in the changing rooms of health clubs or gyms.

There are few restrictions and their use is casual; bathers may enter and exit the sauna as they please, be it nude, with a towel, dripping wet in swimsuits or even in workout clothes (the latter being very unusual). Like many aspects of US culture, there are few prescribed conventions and the bather should remain astute to "read" the specific family or community's expectations. Besides the Finnish Americans, the older generation of Korean-Americans still uses the saunas as it is available to them.

The Sweat lodge, used by many native North Americans as a form of ritual cleansing, is a notable example of an indigenous tradition with many similarities to the Finnish Sauna, Russian Banya or Swedish Bastu. Often sage is used as a ritual aromatic in the ceremonies. Unlike many other sauna traditions, and most forcefully in the case of the Inipi, the sweat lodge ceremony has been robustly defended as an exclusively native expression of spirituality rather than a recreational activity.

In California, a variety of saunas can be found in urban centers, usually at spas or hot tub facilities. Usually these businesses rent medium or large sized rooms by the hour which contain a hot tub, an unenclosed shower, and/or a wet or dry sauna. Very often massage and other body and skin treatments are available at the same facilities, either by themselves or in the customer's private room. Businesses located in red-light districts often have prostitutes soliciting customers nearby.

The Korean-American communities in United States that have settled in urban cities such as Los Angeles county still use the sauna on a weekly basis. These businesses are common in the Koreatown district of Los Angeles. Saunas in Koreatown are built much like their predecessors in Korea, although on a smaller scale. Some saunas offer rooms that have special facilities, i.e. salt rooms, jade rooms, clay fomentation room, charcoal rooms, and various steam rooms.