150 Largest Contemporary Ethnicities in the World

These are the 150 largest ethnicities in the world, not nationalities. Main source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_contemporary_ethnic_groups Several ethnic groups were not included in this source.

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Last updated: May 5, 2017

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First submitted	June 24, 2015
Times taken	16,427
Average score	36.4%
Rating	4.47
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Total Polpulation	Region of Origin	Ethnic Group
1300 million	East Asia	Han Chinese
420 million	South Asia	Hindustani
420 million	Middle East/North Africa	Arab
320 million	South Asia	Bengali
150 million	Europe	German
150 million	Europe	Spaniard
150 million	Europe	Russian
140 million	Europe	Italian
130 million	East Asia	Japanese
120 million	South Asia	Punjabi
106 million	Europe	French
105 million	Southeast Asia	Javanese
104 million	Southeast Asia	Filipino
100 million	Europe	English
100 million	South Asia	Bihari
90 million	South Asia	Telugu
87 million	South Asia	Marathi
83 million	East Asia	Korean
83 million	Middle East/North Africa	Turkish
80 million	Europe	Irish
78 million	South Asia	Tamil
70 million	Middle East/North Africa	Persian
60 million	South Asia	Pashtun
60 million	South Asia	Gujarati
60 million	South Asia	Malayali
58 million	Europe	Pole
55 million	South Asia	Kannada
50 million	Southeast Asia	Thai
48 million	Southeast Asia	Vietnamese
45 million	Sub-Saharan Africa	Oromo
43 million	Sub-Saharan Africa	Yoruba
42 million	Europe	Portuguese
42 million	South Asia	Sindhi
40 million	Europe	Scottish
40 million	Europe	Ukrainian
38 million	Middle East/North Africa	Kurd
35 million	Sub-Saharan Africa	Hausa
35 million	Middle East/North Africa	Azerbaijani
32 million	Sub-Saharan Africa	Igbo
30 million	Southeast Asia	Bamar
30 million	Middle East/North Africa	Berber
30 million	Southeast Asia	Malay
30 million	Southeast Asia	Sundanese
30 million	Central Asia	Uzbek
29 million	Europe	Dutch
26 million	Europe	Serb/Croat/Bosnian
24 million	Europe	Romanian
20 million	Sub-Saharan Africa	Akan
20 million	Americas	Amhara
20 million	Sub-Saharan Africa	Fula
18 million	Middle East/North Africa	Jewish
18 million	Central Asia	Tajik
17 million	Europe	Greek
17 million	East Asia	Zhuang
16 million	Sub-Saharan Africa	Somali
15 million	South Asia	Assamese
15 million	Sub-Saharan Africa	Chewa
15 million	Europe	Hungarian
15 million	Sub-Saharan Africa	Hutu
15 million	South Asia	Sinhalese
14 million	Central Asia	Kazakh
13 million	Sub-Saharan Africa	Mandinka
13 million	Southeast Asia	Khmer
13 million	Europe	Swede
12 million	Europe	Czech
12 million	Sub-Saharan Africa	Zulu
12 million	Southeast Asia	Miao/Hmong
12 million	Sub-Saharan Africa	Mongo
12 million	Europe	Norwegian
10 million	Europe	Byelorussian
10 million	Middle East/North Africa	Copt
10 million	East Asia	Hui
10 million	Sub-Saharan Africa	Ijaw
10 million	Sub-Saharan Africa	Kanuri
10 million	Sub-Saharan Africa	Kikuyu
10 million	Sub-Saharan Africa	Kongo

Total Polpulation	Region of Origin	Ethnic Group
10 million	East Asia	Manchu
10 million	East Asia	Mongol
10 million	Americas	Quechua
10 million	Sub-Saharan Africa	Shona
10 million	Central Asia	Uyghur
9 million	South Asia	Balochi
9 million	Sub-Saharan Africa	Tigrayan
8 million	Europe	Albanian
8 million	Middle East/North Africa	Armenian
8 million	Europe	Bulgarian
8 million	Southeast Asia	Batak
8 million	Sub-Saharan Africa	Beti-Pahuin
8 million	Middle East/North Africa	Circassian
8 million	East Asia	Dai
8 millon	Europe	Finnic
8 million	East Asia	Tujia
8 million	Central Asia	Turkmen
8 million	Sub-Saharan Africa	Xhosa
8 million	East Asia	Yi
7 million	Europe	Catalan
7 million	Middle East/North Africa	Georgian
7 million	Sub-Saharan Africa	Luba
7 million	Sub-Saharan Africa	Luo
7 million	Americas	Maya
7 million	Central Asia	Volga Tatar
7 million	Europe	Welsh
6 million	Europe	Baltic
6 million	Europe	Dane
6 million	Sub-Saharan African	Ganda
6 million	Europe	Slovak
6 million	Sub-Saharan Africa	Sukuma
6 million	Sub-Saharan Africa	Tswana
6 million	Sub-Saharan Africa	Wolof
5 million	Sub-Saharan Africa	Afar
5 million	Sub-Saharan Africa	Dinka
5 million	Sub-Saharan Africa	Ibibio
5 million	Central Asia	Kyrgyz
5 million	Sub-Saharan Africa	Nuer
5 million	Sub-Saharan Africa	Pedi
5 million	Sub-Saharan Africa	Songhai
5 million	Sub-Saharan Africa	Sotho
5 million	East Asia	Tibetan
4 million	Sub-Saharan Africa	Afrikaner
4 million	South Asia	Naga
4 million	Sub-Saharan Africa	Sara
3 million	Middle East/North Africa	Assyrian
3 million	Sub-Saharan Africa	Bambara
3 million	Sub-Saharan Africa	Bemba
3 million	East Asia	Bouyei
3 million	Europe	Galician
3 million	East Asia	Kam/Dong
3 million	Europe	Macedonian
3 million	Sub-Saharan Africa	Ndebele
3 million	South Asia	Romani
3 million	Sub-Saharan Africa	Tigrinya
3 million	East Asia	Yao
2 million	Americas	Aymara
2 million	East Asia	Bai
2 million	Central Asia	Bashkir
2 million	Europe	Basque
2 million	South Asia	Brahui
2 million	Central Asia	Chuvash
2 million	Sub-Saharan Africa	Ga-Adangbe
2 million	East Asia	Hani
2 million	Sub-Saharan Africa	Lango
2 million	Americas	Mapuche
2 million	Europe	Slovene
2 million	Sub-Saharan Africa	Soga
2 million	Sub-Saharan Africa	Swazi
1 million	Sub-Saharan Africa	Acholi
1 million	Europe	Gagauz
1 million	Middle East/North Africa	Laz
1 million	East Asia	Li
1 million	Sub-Saharan Africa	Soninke
1 million	Middle East/North Africa	Tuareg

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71 Comments

Level 68

Jun 24, 2015

Interesting quiz. Norwegian is spelled incorrectly. I am surprised no North American First Nations appear - it would depend on how you group them whether any group would reach top 80 status I guess.

Level 29

Jul 9, 2015

North, South and Central American natives aren't included here because they are broken down into many small tribes.

Level 46

Jun 25, 2015

suprising that there are not very many African ethnicities in the list. would expect to see quite a lot.

Level 29

Jul 9, 2015

African ethnicities are not very populated because there a thousands of different tribes.

Level 71

Nov 21, 2015

Norwegian.

Level 83

Nov 26, 2015

I missed Circassian and Norwegian because QM has spelt them wrong! Good fun though.

Level 32

Dec 1, 2015

Javanese and Malays are the only Indonesian ethnicities in this quiz. Meanwhile, there are Sundanese with 30 million people, Batak with 7.6 million, and a few others numbering above 3 million people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_groups_in_Indonesia

Also, I didnt see Hausa, Yoruba, and Igbo. All three are African (specifically, Nigerian) ethnicities with more than 30 milllion people each.

What the source(s) of this quiz?

Level 57

Dec 1, 2015

should accept "Pashto" "Javan" and "Baluchi"

Level 74

Dec 24, 2015

you should accept azeri for azerbaijani

also sindhi did not work. it's already plural. why the s?

Level 34

Jan 16, 2016

You've missed one that is often missed and certainly undercounted: Romani. Since many are itinerant they are undercounted in all the countries in which they live. Wikipedia sites sources which estimate their numbers to be anywhere between 2 and 4 million.

Given that they were one of the ethnicities that the Nazi's sought to exterminate it is especially important to point out that the extermination was not successful.

Level 29

May 3, 2017

I'll add that

Level 34

Jan 17, 2016

To divide up each of the separate countries which were once Yugoslavia into separate ethnicities is fallacious, IMHO. A SerboCroatian linguist once said, "I went to sleep one night monolingual and woke up the next morning tri-lingual because I could speak Croatian, Serbian, and Bosnian." He gave a great definition for a language: "A language is a dialect with an army." For these countries you've now defined an ethnicity by its nation-state.

Level 29

May 3, 2017

True, I'll fix that

Level 70

Jul 28, 2024

There are other ways to describe ethnicity however, it's culturally subjective and not merely about language. Religion is one of the factors which can define ethnicity, and this is important in former Yugoslavia where there is a defined difference between Orthodox Serbs, Muslim Bosnians and Catholic Croats. The idea of Serbs, Bosnians and Croats as distinct ethnic groups predates the modern post-communist countries.

Level 80

Jan 19, 2016

Khmer? 13 million

Level 62

Mar 23, 2016

What about estonians (1 million), Latvians(1,5 million) and lithuanians(3.9 to 4.1 million)

Level 34

May 19, 2016

jew isn't an ethnic group

Level 93

Jan 2, 2017

Umm, define ethnic group then...

+10

Level 29

May 3, 2017

Jews can refer to the ethnic group or the religion. For example, if a Chinese person converts to Judaism, they are a religious Jew, but not an ethnic one, and if an ethnic Jew converts to Christianity, they are still an ethnic Jew, but not a religious one.

Level 90

Sep 23, 2016

Uzbeks, Tajiks, Belorusians, Lithuanians, Latvians, ....

Level 29

May 3, 2017

I'll add that

Level 83

Sep 30, 2021

Suggest accepting alternate spellings for Belorussian/Belarusian (these are the variants accepted by my spell checker). I know that's spelling it with the 'y' is closer to how it's actually pronounced, but didn't think to try it, because I've never seen it spelled that way on this site.

Level 44

Sep 30, 2016

Ethnicity isn't tribe related. Many tribes can form part of the same ethnic group. That would mean that Native American and African groups are erroneously left of the list.

Level 77

Jan 17, 2017

Yep

Level 73

Jul 28, 2024

They can, yes, but they don't necessarily. What is a Native American ethnicity you think should be included?

Level 62

Jan 2, 2017

Great quiz..love learning things I don't really know. Challenging, but just wondering, why is this not eligible for points? I have never made a quiz so I am curious.

Level 80

Jan 8, 2017

Bamar, largest ethnic group of Myanmar, about 30 million people worldwide.

Level 29

May 3, 2017

I'll add that

Level 63

Jan 12, 2017

1 million people describe themselves as Faroe? The population now is 50.000 and I doubt that there's been that much emigration. Icelandic is also a shocker

Level 29

May 3, 2017

Yeah, I don't think the source I used was too accurate...

Level 83

Feb 28, 2017

Are the Flemish/Afrikaners included in the Dutch 29 million?

Because even though they share a common language (sort of), there is a serious case to be made that they are at least as much apart as a people than the Swedes and Norwegians, for example...

A bit nitpickerish, I know ;)

Level 29

May 3, 2017

Haha, that's fine. Lot's of people are giving suggestions. Thanks!

Level 88

Jun 19, 2021

Yea that is quite incorrect indeed haha

Level 58

Mar 22, 2017

Jews aren't an ethnicity, population is spelled incorrectly

Level 29

May 3, 2017

Jews can refer to the religion and the ethnicity.

Level 69

Mar 28, 2017

There are around 10 million Quechua people, as well as 2 million Aymara, 1.7 million Mapuche, 7 million Maya, 8 million Xhosa, 20 million Amhara, 10 million Copts, 7 million Luba, 12 million Mongo, 16 million Somalis, 10 million Shona, 12 million Zulu, 5 million Sotho, 4 million Akyem, 6.2 million Wolof, and probably numerous more I missed.

Level 29

May 3, 2017

I'll add

Level 83

Sep 30, 2021

Amhara is incorrectly labeled "Americas" -- should be "Sub-Saharan Africa"

Level 74

Apr 5, 2017

There are 19 ethnicities from China exceeding 1.2 million by 2010. Only 9 are listed here: Han, Zhuang, Hui, Manchu, Uyghur, Mongol, Kazakh, Tibetan, Kyrgyz.

The other 10 are: Miao (Hmong), Yi, Tujia, Dong, Bouyei, Yao, Bai, Hani, Li, Dai.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_China

Level 72

Apr 12, 2017

No UZbeks?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uzbeks

Level 29

May 3, 2017

I'll add them

Level 36

Apr 25, 2017

You should accept Bosniac, that's the spelling in English

Level 29

May 3, 2017

Level 29

May 3, 2017

New and improved. Note: some ethnic groups from places like the Caucasus's and Central Asia can also fall into Europe or East Asia depending on your opinion

Also, Turks originate from Central Asia, and Afrikaners from Europe, but the reason they are listed under Middle East/North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa respectively is because that is where the majority of their populations can be found today.

Level 69

May 3, 2017

Quizmaster,

Please made this quiz eligible for points.

Thanks if you do so...

Level 68

Dec 6, 2017

Amhara come from Ethiopia, not the Americas. Fun quiz!

Level 61

Dec 10, 2018

Are Filipinos considered of different ethnic groups based on different languages, i.e. Tagalog, Cebuano, Ilocano?

Level 71

Jan 16, 2019

Good idea for a quiz, but here are my complaints. ;) You should allow the spellings Singhalese and Singalese, and Belarussian. The Amhara people live in Ethiopia, not America. It should be Finn, not Finnic, as that's an umbrella term for several related peoples/languages. Also, the word million has been misspelled when it comes to Finnic. Romani should be Roma, as Romani is the name of the language and Roma of the people. Actually, it seems like your source has had a major update. It has many 1 million+ ethnicities not in your list, while e.g. Baltic is not listed at all, instead being broken up into Lithuanians and Latvians.

Level 44

May 9, 2019

Byelorussian is colonial. The correct term is Belarusian.

Level 74

Jan 11, 2020

There a lot of errors in the quiz, but it's worth nominating.

Level 51

Jan 20, 2020

For quite a few of those some type-ins would be good. The most glaring example of this is spelling of Belarusians - I tried 10 different spellings, but an idea of this particular one never got to me.

Level 29

Feb 8, 2020

Should Tuareg be on there? They are already included as Berber.

Level 76

Jul 11, 2020

What is the difference between Tigrinya and Tigrayan?

Level 73

Dec 13, 2022

At one point, they were the same. Now, they are not.

That's also true of all ethnicities, but in this case the change happened comparatively recently.

Level 58

Jun 17, 2021

Damn apparently the Tigrayans in Ethiopia and the Tigrinya of Eritrea are not the same, even tho they both speak the Tigrinya language and belong to the Oriental Orthodox church. To add to the confusion, there's also the Tigre people in Eritrea who are also a separate group and predominantly Muslim

All three live along the Ethiopia-Eritrean border. Extremely confusing

Level 73

Jun 19, 2021

Your source is definitely faulty! You could have used a more reliable source. Who are the Hindustani peoples? The so-called term "Hindustani" is a gross simplification of several Hindi- and Urdu-speaking peoples of northern parts of the subcontinent. The subcontinent is a very diverse region where the language, dialect and culture changes every five kilometres or so!

From the same source, I found that the population of Biharis exceeds 250 million! Moreover, the Odia (or Oriya) are missing. They have a population of more than 40 million. I'd also suggest checking the populations of the Rajasthani, Kashmiri, and Nepali peoples.

Level 73

Jun 19, 2021

More groups are missing. You should check the following articles:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Aryan_peoples

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Asian_ethnic_groups

Level 70

Oct 1, 2021

It is difficult to count for Nepali people since some sources do a breakdown by caste, but at the very least Khas people should be included.

I tried so many combination of 'Odia' before I moved on haha, the fact the spelling recently changed still confuses me!

Level 85

Jun 19, 2021

This quiz could stand to lose about 100 answers. I was doing pretty well, but I had to stop before I died of boredom.

Level 70

Oct 1, 2021

There is definetely a place for long form quizzes too! Don't quite count them out :)

Level 65

Sep 30, 2021

12 million Norwegians???

Level 83

Sep 30, 2021

There are almost as many Norwegian-Americans as actual Norwegians.

Level 69

Sep 30, 2021

This data seems very inconsistent. 80 million Irish and 40 million Scottish suggest their descendants in North America are counted, but the same doesn't apply to Basque descendants in Latin America, which there are also many millions of, but this quiz counts only two million.

Why are Lithuanians and Latvians grouped together as "Baltic", when they are no more similar to each other than Czechs and Slovaks or Spanish and Portuguese and Galicians? Why are Galicians counted as a separate ethnicity but not Occitans, for example?

Level 73

Sep 30, 2021

Very interesting quiz. How did you managed to work with south american data, though? To my understanding, though it might be simple to put white brazilians as portuguese, spanish, german or italian, depending on whom they claim genetic ancestry, it's a whole different subject when it comes to black and mestizo brazilians. They don't define themselves by african, amerindian or european ethnicities.

Level 73

Sep 30, 2021

On a more personal note, which shows how difficult it is to define ethnicities based only on genetics, my My Heritage DNA results show that I am:

40.9% iberian (portuguese), 15.2% greek/south italian, 12.8% sardinian, 11.6% scandinavian, 8.7% irish/welsh/scotish, 4% north african, 3% nigerian, 1.7% Mesoamerican/Andean 1.2% balkanian and 0.9% native american.

With that said, though I see myself as a white Brazilian with over 90% european genetic ancestry, and though I also hold a portuguese citizenship in addition to my original nationality based on said ancestry, I most certainly ain't culturally portuguese since I was raised in Brazil. Anyway, kudos for making a nice quiz from such a difficult subject!

Level 59

Dec 11, 2022

I assume this includes American people considering themselves being "Irish" or "Italian", since their grandmother was from Italy or so.

Level 73

Dec 18, 2022

You are incorrectly assuming that all Americans are part of the so-called "melting pot", rather than the fact that many small pockets exist where the entire community is really still Irish, Italian, German, Norwegian, Dutch, or whatever else that particular group happened to be. It's a big place. There is plenty of room for full communities of homogeneous ethnicities to exist without full integration into the greater American ethnic soup. There are also big cities where most people are of a mixed heritage like you are describing, with maybe a grandparent who was from one of those communities or immigrated themselves.

Level 69

Dec 11, 2022

Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t “Viet” used to describe the ethnicity as well? Fun quiz regardless!

Level 73

Dec 18, 2022

I mean maybe? The country has historically been known by Dai Viet, Viet Nam, and Dai Nam (and several other things, especially when it was dis-unified), so you could easily argue that the current configuration is not the only correct version, but in English we pretty much just say Vietnamese.

Level 55

Feb 14, 2024

For Amhara, is mentionned Americas, but it's an Aethiopian ethnicity.

Level 42

Jul 27, 2024

Turkish people aren't from Africa wtf xaxaaxaxxaaxaxa