Rwanda

The people of Rwanda are Rwandans. The population of Rwanda is about 85 percent Hutu, who were traditionally farmers.

Rwandans

Rwanda is one of the only African kingdoms to have kept its identity through the colonial era (1890–1962). However, colonial rule harmed Rwanda in ways that helped lead to ethnic warfare in the 1990s.

Hutu

The word Hutu is the name for the majority of people who live in the countries of Rwanda and Burundi. The Hutu have much in common with the other peoples of these countries, the Tutsi and the Twa.

St. Kitts and Nevis

The population of St. Kitts and Nevis is mainly of African descent.

Kittitians and Nevisians

St. Lucia

The people of St. Lucia are called St.

St. Lucians

St. Vincent and the Grenadines

The people of St. Vincent and the Grenadines are called St.

St. Vincentians

San Marino

The people of San Marino are called Sammarinese. The population is almost all of Italian descent.

Sammarinese

The tiny nation of San Marino is located completely within the borders of Italy. It is Europe's third-smallest country and its oldest independent republic.

Saudi Arabia

The people of Saudi Arabia are called Saudis. The great majority have a common Arabian ancestry.

Saudis

Modern-day Saudis are descended from ancient nomadic desert tribes who were fiercely independent. The country, officially known as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, was officially founded on September 23, 1932.

Bedu

Senegal

The people of Senegal are called Senegalese. The largest ethnic group is the Wolof, who make about 40 percent of the total population.

Senegalese

Senegal has an important precolonial history. The lands now comprising Senegal once were part of three empires: Ghana, Mali (which brought Islam to the area), and the Songhai.

Wolof

The Wolof are the major ethnic group in Senegal. They are very influential culturally and politically.

Seychelles

The people of the Seychelles are called Seychellois. The people represent intermarriage of African, French, and Asian ancestors.

Seychellois

Sierra Leone

The people of Sierra Leone are called Sierra Leoneans. The population is composed of about eighteen ethnic groups.

Creoles of Sierra Leone

The Creoles are a culturally distinct people of Sierra Leone. Their ancestors were freed slaves brought to the region as immigrants from London, Nova Scotia, Jamaica, and other parts of west Africa.

Slovakia

The people of Slovakia are called Slovaks. The people who trace their descent to Slovakia make up 85 percent of the population.

Slovaks

Slavic peoples first settled in present-day Slovakia in the fifth century AD, eventually forming the short-lived Moravian Empire. Throughout much of history, Slovakia was dominated by the Magyars (Hungarians).

Slovenia

The people of Slovenia are called Slovenes. Almost 90 percent of the the population trace their heritage to Slovenia.

Slovenes

Somalia

The people of Somalia are called Somalis. About 98 percent of the population trace their descent to Somalia.

Somalis

In the late nineteenth century, the northern half of Somalia became a British protectorate. The southern half of Somalia was an Italian colony until 1960.

South Africa

The people of South Africa are called South Africans. The population has a complex ethnic makeup.

Afrikaners

South Africa is located at the southern point of Africa. During the seventeenth century, Dutch colonists from the Netherlands (known as Boers) settled there.

Cape Coloreds

South Africa's 3.6 million mixed-race people are referred to as Cape Coloreds or Coloreds. In other places in the world, the word colored used to describe race is considered disparaging (negative or critical).

English

About 14 percent, or 6.3 million, of the population of South Africa is white. English South Africans make up just under half of that group, or about 6 percent.

Xhosa

The word Xhosa refers to a people and a language of South Africa. The Xhosa-speaking people are divided into a number of subgroups with their own distinct but related heritages.

Zulu

For many people, the Zulu are the best-known African people. Their military exploits led to the rise of a great kingdom that was feared for a long time over much of the African continent.

Spain

The Basques, Galicians, and Catalans consider themselves separate nations within Spain. They enjoy a fair amount of cultural, economic, and political independence.

Spaniards

Spain is the second-largest nation in Europe, after France. It is a land of contrasts and extremes.

Andalusians

Andalusia is located in southern Spain. It has a distinctive culture influenced by its hot Mediterranean climate, its historical tolerance of diverse ethnic groups (including Jews and Gypsies), and, most important, its long period of rule by the Moors.

Basques

The Basques are a single people who live in two countries—northwest Spain and southwest France. The Basques may be the oldest ethnic group in Europe.

Castilians

The Castilians, who inhabit Spain's central plateau, have dominated Spain politically since the sixteenth century AD. The area traditionally referred to as Castile comprises two present-day regions: Castile-and-LeĂłn and Castile-La Mancha.

Catalans

The Catalan people live in an area of northeast Spain called Catalonia. Historically, Catalonia also included Valencia, Andorra, the Balearic Islands, and the French department (or province) called Pyrenees Orientales.

Galicians

Galicia was first unified as a kingdom by the Germanic Suevi tribe in the fifth century AD. The shrine of St.

Sri Lanka

The people of Sri Lanka are called Sri Lankans. Ethnic groups include the Sinhalese making up about 74 percent of the total population; Tamils, making up 18 percent of the total.

Sinhalese

The Sinhalese are the major ethnic group of Sri Lanka, an island located off the southern tip of India. It is believed that the Sinhalese are descendants of peoples that came from northern India and settled the island around the fifth century BC.

Tamils

The Tamil name comes from "Damila." This is the name of a non-Aryan people mentioned in early Buddhist and Jain records. The Tamil have roots in western India, Pakistan, and areas farther to the west.

Sudan

Native Sudanese include Arabs (an estimated 39 percent of the population); Nilotic or Negroid peoples, of whom the Dinka form the largest portion and constitute about 10 percent of the national population. In all, there are nearly 600 ethnic groups.

Sudanese

The history of the Sudan, "Land of the Blacks," has been predominantly one of invasion and conquest. The earliest known events date back to 750 BC.

Dinka

The Dinka are one of the largest ethnic groups in the Republic of Sudan. They belong to a group of cultures known as the Nilotic peoples, all of whom live in the southern Sudan.

Suriname

Suriname has one of the most diverse populations in the world. The two largest ethnic groups are the Creoles, mixed-race descendents of black plantation slaves (about 35 percent of the population), and the Hindustanis (about 33 percent), descendants of indentured laborers from India.

Surinamese

Swaziland

The people of Swaziland are called Swazis. There are more than seventy clans, of which the Nkosi Dlamini—the royal clan—is dominant.

Swazis

In the late sixteenth century, the first Swazi king, Ngwane II, settled southeast of modern-day Swaziland. His grandson, Sobhuza I, unified the resident Nguni and Sotho people within a central government.

Sweden

The people of Sweden are called Swedes. Minorities include about 300,000 Finns in the north and approximately 20,000 Sami.

Swedes

Swedes live in Sweden, one of the countries that make up the region known as Scandanavia. (The other Scandinavian nations are Denmark, Finland, Iceland, and Norway.) The first written reference to the Swedes is by the Roman historian Tacitus, who called the Swedes "mighty in ships and arms" in AD 98.

Switzerland

The people of Switzerland are called Swiss. The Swiss trace their ancestry to Germany, France, and Italy.

Swiss

Switzerland is located at the crossroads of Europe. Although a small country, it is the meeting point for three of Europe's major cultures—German, French and Italian.

Syria

The people of Syria are called Syrians. The Druze, about 8 percent of the population, are both a religious and an ethnic group.

Syrians

Syrians live in the Syrian Arab Republic, more commonly known as Syria. It is a land that has been inhabited for more than 7,000 years.

Druze

The Druze are both a religious and an ethnic group. The group originated in Cairo, Egypt, in AD 1009–10.