Ethnic groups in Europe
The European peoples are the various na-
tions and ethnic groups of Europe. European
ethnology is the field of anthropology focus-
ing on Europe.
Pan and Pfeil (2004) count 87 distinct
"peoples of Europe", of which 33 form the
majority population in at least one sovereign
state, while the remaining 54 constitute eth-
nic minorities. The total number of national
minority populations in Europe is estimated
at 105 million people, or 14% of 770 million
Europeans.[1]
There is no precise or universally accep-
ted definition of the terms "ethnic group" or
"nationality". In the context of European eth-
nography in particular, the terms ethnic
group, people (without nation state), nation-
ality, national minority, ethnic minority, lin-
guistic community, linguistic group and lin-
guistic minority are used as mostly synonym-
ous, although preference may vary in usage
with respect to the situation specific to the
individual countries of Europe.[2]
Overview
Further
information:
Demographics
of
Europe
There are eight peoples of Europe with more
than 30 million members residing in Europe:
1. the Russians (ca. 90 million settling in the
European parts of Russia),[3]
2. the Germans (ca. 82 million),[4]
3. the French (ca. 65 million[5])
4. the British[6] 60 million
5. the Italians (ca. 59 million)[7]
6. the Spanish (ca. 46 million),[8]
7. the Ukrainians (ca. 46 million),
8. the Poles (ca. 38 million).
These eight groups between themselves ac-
count for some 460 million or about 63% of
European population.
About 20-25 million residents (3%) are
members of diasporas of non-European ori-
gin. The population of the European Union,
with some five hundred million residents, ac-
counts
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