Peoples of Asia
Peoples of Asia Encyclopedia Articles
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Kurd
Kurd, any member of an ethnic and linguistic group concentrated in the Taurus Mountains of southeastern Anatolia, the Zagros Mountains of western Iran, portions of northern Iraq, northeastern Syria, and...
Baloch
Baloch, group of tribes speaking the Balochi language and estimated at about five million inhabitants in the province of Balochistān in Pakistan and also neighbouring areas of Iran and Afghanistan. In...
Yakan
Yakan, ethnic group living primarily on Basilan Island but also on Sacol, Malanipa, and Tumalutab islands, all off the southern tip of the Zamboanga Peninsula, in the southern Philippines. Smaller groups...
Philistine
Philistine, one of a people of Aegean origin who settled on the southern coast of Palestine in the 12th century bce, about the time of the arrival of the Israelites. According to biblical tradition (Deuteronomy...
Bengali
Bengali, majority population of Bengal, the region of northeastern South Asia that generally corresponds to the country of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal. The Bengali people speak dialects...
Aranda
Aranda, Aboriginal tribe that originally occupied a region of 25,000 square miles (65,000 square km) in central Australia, along the upper Finke River and its tributaries. The Aranda were divided into...
Hmong
Hmong, ethnic group living chiefly in China and Southeast Asia and speaking Hmong, one of the Hmong-Mien languages (also known as Miao-Yao languages). Since the late 18th century, the Hmong alone among...
Uyghur
Uyghur, a Turkic-speaking people of inner Asia. Uyghurs live primarily in northwestern China, in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, where they have been subject to a government crackdown since 2017....
Manchu
Manchu, people who lived for many centuries mainly in Manchuria (now Northeast) and adjacent areas of China and who in the 17th century conquered China and ruled for more than 250 years. The term Manchu...
Hittite
Hittite, member of an ancient Indo-European people who appeared in Anatolia at the beginning of the 2nd millennium bce; by 1340 bce they had become one of the dominant powers of the Middle East. Probably...
Ainu
Ainu, indigenous people of Hokkaido, Sakhalin, and the Kuril Islands who were culturally and physically distinct from their Japanese neighbours until the second part of the 20th century. The Ainu may be...
Hun
Hun, member of a nomadic pastoralist people who invaded southeastern Europe c. 370 ce and during the next seven decades built up an enormous empire there and in central Europe. Appearing from beyond the...
Xiongnu
Xiongnu, nomadic pastoral people who at the end of the 3rd century bce formed a great tribal league that was able to dominate much of Central Asia for more than 500 years. China’s wars against the Xiongnu,...
Mongol
Mongol, member of a Central Asian ethnographic group of closely related tribal peoples who live mainly on the Mongolian Plateau and share a common language and nomadic tradition. Their homeland is now...
Maguindanao
Maguindanao, ethnolinguistic group living primarily in south-central Mindanao, the largest island in the southern Philippines. With a name meaning “people of the flood plain,” the Maguindanao are most...
Kalmyk
Kalmyk, Mongol people residing chiefly in Kalmykiya republic, in southwestern Russia. Their language belongs to the Oirat, or western, branch of the Mongolian language group. The Oirat dialects are also...
Tamil
Tamil, people originally of southern India who speak Tamil, one of the principal languages of the Dravidian family. Numbering about 64 million in the early 21st century (including about 3 million speakers...
Tai
Tai, peoples of mainland Southeast Asia, including the Thai, or Siamese (in central and southern Thailand), the Lao (in Laos and northern Thailand), the Shan (in northeast Myanmar [Burma]), the Lü (primarily...
Persian
Persian, predominant ethnic group of Iran (formerly known as Persia). Although of diverse ancestry, the Persian people are united by their language, Persian (Farsi), which belongs to the Indo-Iranian group...
Sama
Sama, one of the largest and most diverse ethnolinguistic groups of insular Southeast Asia. The Sama live mainly in the southern half of the Sulu Archipelago, in the southwestern Philippines, although...
Caucasian peoples
Caucasian peoples, various ethnic groups living in the Caucasus, a geographically complex area of mountain ranges, plateaus, foothills, plains, rivers, and lakes, with grasslands, forests, marshes, and...
