Historical Ethnic Groups of Europe - Overview

Overview

Further information: Demographics of Europe

There are eight peoples of Europe (defined by their language) with more than 30 million members residing in Europe:

  1. the Russians (ca. 95 million residing in Europe),
  2. the Germans (ca. 82 million),
  3. the French (ca. 65 million)
  4. the Italians (ca. 56 - 61 million)
  5. the British (55 - 61 million)
  6. the Spanish (ca. 47 million),
  7. the Ukrainians (ca. 41 million),
  8. the Poles (ca. 38 million).

These eight groups between themselves account for some 465 million or about 65% of European population.

About 20-25 million residents (3%) are members of diasporas of non-European origin. The population of the European Union, with some five hundred million residents, accounts for two thirds of the European population.

Both Spain and the UK are special cases, in that the designation of nationality, Spanish and British, may controversially take ethnic aspects, subsuming various regional ethnic groups, see nationalisms and regionalisms of Spain and native populations of the United Kingdom. Switzerland is a similar case, but the linguistic subgroups of the Swiss are not usually discussed in terms of ethnicity, and Switzerland is considered a "multi-lingual state" rather than a "multi-ethnic state".

Overview map of the peoples of Europe
Size and geographic distribution of the 87 peoples of Europe, according to Pan & Pfeil (2003).

Font size reflects population size (groups smaller than 2 million not to scale) Groups not shown due to lack of geographic concentration: Romani (3.8 million), Jews (1.3 million), Karaim (4,600). Small Caucasian groups (<0.2 million) not shown in map: Cherkes, Karachays, Lak, Tabasarans, Balkars, Nogais, Rutuls, Tats, Tsakhurs.
Albanians Belarusians Bulgarians Croats Czechs Danes Finns French Occitans Ger
ma
ns Greeks Hungarians Irish Ita
li
ans Tatars Lithuanians Dutch Norwegians Poles Portu
guese Romanians Russians Serbs Slovaks Span
iards Catalans Swedes Turks Ukrainians English Scots Welsh Sardinians Basques Slovenes Macedonians Bosniaks Montenegrins Faroese Sami Icelanders Manx Maltese Latvians Livs Estonians Frisians Chuvash Bashkirs Chechens Avars Dargins Kabards Lezgins Mordvins Ingush Ossetians Udmurts Komi Permyaks Mari Komi Kalmyks Karelians Vepsians Izhorians Romansh Kashubs Bretons Cornish Aromanians Lux. Sorbs Kumyks Gagauz Inuit

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