Colombian People - Ethnic Groups

Ethnic Groups

A large percentage of African influence came into Colombia.

The European immigrants were primarily Spanish colonists, but a small number of other Europeans (i.e. Portuguese, Dutch, German, Italian, French, Swiss, Belgians, English and a small colony of Irish when the country was under British rule) and also many North Americans migrated to the Caribbean region in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and in smaller numbers Germans, Polish, Lithuanian, Hungarian and Croatian communities immigrated during the Second World War and the Cold War.

Black Africans were brought as slaves, mostly to the coastal lowlands, beginning early in the 16th century, and continuing into the 19th century. Other immigrant populations include Asians and Middle Easterners, particularly Lebanese, Jordanians, Syrians, Chinese, Japanese and Koreans, recently have been moving into the country.

49% of the population is mestizo, or of mixed European and the earliest settlers' ancestry, while 37% are white of full European ancestry. Another 14% is mulatto, or of mixed black African and European ancestry, while 4% is of black African ancestry and 3% are zambos, of mixed black African and Amerindian ancestry. Pure indigenous Amerindians comprise 1 percent of the population. There are 101 languages listed for Colombia in the Ethnologue database, of which 80 are spoken today as living languages. There are about 500,000 speakers of indigenous languages in Colombia today.