The people of Norway are called Norwegians. The population is nearly all of the same ethnicity—generally tall and fair-skinned, with blue eyes.
The people of Oman are called Omanis. On the northern coast, there are groups of Baluchi, Iranian, and African people.
The present-day land of Oman was home to a fairly advanced civilization as far back as about 5000 BC. From 3000 BC until AD 1500, the Omanis were a prosperous, sea-faring, export-oriented people.
The people of Pakistan are called Pakistanis. About two-thirds of the population are Punjabi, tracing their origin to the Punjab region of northwest India.
Punjabis derive their name from a geographical, historical, and cultural region located in the northwest of the Indian sub-continent. Punjab comes from the Persian words panj (five) and ab (river) and means "Land of the Five Rivers." It was the name used for the lands to the east of the Indus River that are drained by its five tributaries (the Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej).
The people of Panama are called Panamanians. About 70 percent of the population is mestizo (mixed white and Amerindian or native) or mulatto (mixed white and black); 14 percent are black; a little more than 10 percent are white (mostly Europeans); and 5 to 8 percent are Amerindian (native people).
The people of Papua New Guinea are called Melanesians. They are usually classified by language group.
The art of Iatmul people is the most well represented of all the indigenous peoples of Papua New Guinea. However, few people have much knowledge or understanding of the complex culture that produced these appealing sculptures, carvings, and masks.
The Melpa (also spelled Medlpa) are some of the first Papuans that tourists and visitors to the island of New Guinea see when they step off planes arriving in Mount Hagen. (The Melpa are often called "Hageners.") The Melpa frequent the airport, offering modern "stone axes," colorful string bags, and other artifacts for sale.
The Motu are a group who live on the southern coast of Papua New Guinea. They occupy a stretch of coastline that was the first area of permanent European settlement on the island of New Guinea.
The people of Paraguay are called Paraguayans. About 90 percent of the population is mestizo (mixture of Spanish and GuaranĂ Indian).
Paraguay is a lone, landlocked country. For much of its history, it has deliberately kept itself apart from the rest of Latin America.
The GuaranĂs were once one of the most influential American Indian peoples in the southern part of South America. They were settled in the tropical forests of Paraguay and southern Brazil.
Between 30 and 45 percent of the inhabitants of Peru are Amerindian (native), about 30 percent mestizo (mixed Spanish and Amerindian), 15 percent white, and 3 percent black, Asian, or other. The Asháninka and Quechua are two Amerindian groups, but there are a number of other tribes.
Once the seat of the expansive Inca Empire, Peru is a dramatic mix of old and new. After the conquest of the Incas, Peru's capital, Lima, became the center of Spain's colonial power structure in the Americas.
The Asháninka are an ethnic group of the Peruvian Amazon rain forest. They are also known in Peru and abroad by the name "Campa." They consider this name derogatory because it derives from the Quechua thampa, which means ragged and dirty.
The Quechua Indians of the central Andes are the direct descendants of the Incas. The Inca Empire, which existed for a century before the arrival of the Spanish, was a highly developed civilization.
The people of the Philippines are called Filipinos. There are nine main ethnic groups: Tagalog, Ilocanos, Pampanguenos, Pangasinans, Bicolanos, Cebuanos, Boholanos, Hiligaynon (Ilongos), and Waray-Waray.
Long before the 1600s, the fertility of the Western Visayas region in the Philippines permitted the Hiligaynon people to develop one of the archipelago's most advanced societies. They engaged in international trade (as evidenced by large finds of Chinese porcelain) and created fine work in gold and semiprecious stones.
Before World War II (1939–45), over 30 percent of the people living within the boundaries of Poland were non-Poles. As a result of World War II, and of the boundary changes and population transfers that followed, only about 2 percent of Poland's population today is non-Polish.
In AD 966, the Poles converted to Christianity and formed their first state. During the first seven centuries of its history, Poland expanded to become one of Europe's largest countries.
The Portuguese people represent a mixture of various ethnic strains. In the north are traces of Celtic influence.
Portugal was one of the first European nations to be unified into a single country. It gained independence from Spain with the accession of King Alfonse I in 1143.
The native population of Qatar (about 100,000) descends from Bedouin (or Bedu) tribes. Pakistanis, Indians, Iranians, and Gulf and Palestinian Arabs are among the leading immigrant groups.
Qataris live on a small peninsula that juts due north into the Persian Gulf, in the area generally known as the Middle East. Qatar is one of the "oil states," a country that moved quickly from poverty to riches with the discovery of oil reserves.
Ethnic Romanians constitute 89 percent of the population of Romania. Two important ethnic minorities are Hungarians (7.5 percent of the total population) and Germans (0.5 percent), both concentrated in the Transylvania region.
The territory that comprises Romania today was inhabited by the Dacians and Getae as early as the sixth century BC. These ancestors of the Romanians organized a separate country known as Dacia, which developed and prospered to the time of King Decebalus (AD 87–106).
The people of Russia are called Russians. A little more than 80 percent of the population are Russian by ancestry.
The Caucasus Mountains stretch along a line 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) long between the Black Sea and Caspian Sea, and the region includes the southwestern corner of the Russian Federation. The Caucasus region has a long history of conflict and bloodshed among its peoples.
Several small and ancient Paleo-Siberian groups live in Russia's extreme northeastern section of Siberia. The Chukchi are an ancient Arctic people who chiefly live on the Chukchi peninsula, or Chukotka.
There are many Finno-Ugric peoples living in Russia. These groups speak languages that are related to modern Finnish and/or Hungarian and include the Karelians, Komi, Maris, Mordvins, and Udmurts.
For thousands of years, people have lived in the harsh arctic environment in what is today northern Russia. In ancient times, people relied exclusively on what nature provided and on what their ingenuity allowed them to use and create.