- African Escorts
African peoples, who account for over 12% of the world's population, are distributed among 54 nations and are further distinguishable in terms of linguistic (see African languages) and cultural groups, which number around 1,000. The Sahara forms a great ethnic divide.
- Albanian Escorts
The country's rugged and inaccessible terrain has traditionally isolated Albania from its neighbors, thus helping to preserve its ethnic homogeneity. About 90% of the population is ethnic Albanian, less than 10% is Greek, and there are scattered Vlach, Bulgar, Serb, and Gypsy minorities. Many ethnic Albanians also live in the Kosovo region of Serbia, with which there has long been a border dispute and where the drive for Albanian autonomy or independence from Serbia is pronounced.
- American Escorts
More than 79% of the United States population are urban (and more than 50% are estimated to be suburban, a not strictly defined category that can be taken as a subset of urban), and the great majority of the inhabitants are of European descent.
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Argentina, unlike most Latin American nations, has a population that is principally of European descent, especially of Italian and Spanish origin. The mestizo portion of Argentina's population is very small, except in the northwest, because there has been little mixture between European and indigenous peoples. The native population, which has steadily declined since the coming of the Europeans, who decimated its ranks and its culture, is still strong only in parts of the Gran Chaco and the Andean highlands. Italian, Spanish (including Basque), French, German, British, Swiss, and East European immigrants came to Argentina during the 1880s; other large in-migrations of Europeans occurred in the 1930s and following World War II. There has also been some in-migration of Chileans, Bolivians, and Paraguayans.
- Asian Escorts
The distribution of Asia's huge population is governed by climate and topography, with the monsoons and the fertile alluvial plains determining the areas of greatest density. Such are the Ganges plains of India and the Chang (Yangtze) and northern plains of China, the small alluvial plains of Japan, and the fertile volcanic soils of the Malay Archipelago. Urbanization is greatest in the industrialized regions of Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, but huge urban centers are to be found throughout the continent.
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Australia , smallest continent, between the Indian and Pacific oceans. Most Australians are of British and Irish ancestry and the majority of the country lives in urban areas. In the 19th cent., Australia enacted strong measures to prevent immigration by nonwhites. After World War II, immigration from Greece, Turkey, Italy, and other countries increased Australia's cultural diversity. The indigenous population, the Australian aborigines, estimated to number as many as 350,000 at the time of the Europeans' arrival, was numbered at 386,049 (including Torres Strait Islanders, who are of Papuan descent) in 1996.
- Austrian Escorts
The Alps traverse Austria from west to east and occupy three fourths of the country. The highest peak in Austria is the Grossglockner (12,460 ft/3,798 m) in the Hohe Tauern group. The scenic beauty of Tyrol, the Salzkammergut, Innsbruck, the Austrian Alps, Karnten, and Salzburg city, and the attractions of Vienna and other cultural centers have made Austria a major European tourist center. German-speaking, over 99% of Austrians are of Germanic ethnic origin, and some 78% are Roman Catholics.
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Much of Belarus is a hilly lowland, drained by the Dnieper, Western Dvina, and Neman rivers. About 80% of the population are Belarusians; Russians, Poles, Ukrainians, Lithuanians, and Jews are the republic's largest minorities. Since the breakup the USSR, Belarus has experienced a slow decline in population. Both Belarusian and Russian are official languages, but Russian is more widely used.
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Dutch is the official language in Flanders, while French is official in the south. The French-speaking people are commonly called Walloons, although the term once referred chiefly to those people in the area of the city of Liege who spoke Walloon, a French dialect. Brussels is bilingual, and German is spoken in a small section of Liege province. About three quarters of the population is Roman Catholic; the balance is largely Protestant, although there are Islamic and Jewish minorities in the cities.
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Bolivia presents a sharp contrast between high, bleak mountains and plateaus in the west and lush, tropical rain forests in the east. The Andes mountain system reaches its greatest width in Bolivia. Despite the harsh conditions the altiplano is the population center of Bolivia. In the north are Lake Titicaca, which Bolivia shares with Peru, and Lake Poopo.
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Brazil has the largest population in South America and is the fifth most populous country in the world. The people are also diverse in origin, and Brazil often boasts that the new race of Brazilians is a successful amalgam of African, European, and indigenous strains, a claim that is truer in the social than the political or economic realm. Portuguese is the official language, and Spanish, English, and French are also widely spoken.
- Bulgarian Escorts
Central Bulgaria is traversed from east to west by ranges of the Balkan Mts. (Stara Planina, or Old Mountains in Bulgarian). The population consists chiefly of Bulgars. There is a substantial minority of Turks, and smaller groups of Gypsies and Macedonians, although Bulgaria, with its historic claim to Macedonia, refuses to recognize Macedonians as distinct from Bulgars. Bulgarian is the predominant language.
- Canadian Escorts
About 40% of the Canadian population are of British descent, while 27% are of French origin. Another 20% are of other European background, about 10% are of E or SE Asian origin, and some 3% are of aboriginal or Metis (mixed aboriginal and European) background. Canada has complete religious liberty, though its growing multiculturalism has at times caused tensions among ethnic and religious groups. English and French are the official languages, and federal documents are published in both languages.
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The Han Chinese (so called for the Han dynasty) make up approximately 92% of the total population. They are linguistically homogeneous in the north, where they speak Mandarin (the basis of the national language of China), while in the south Cantonese, Wu, Hakka, and many other dialects are spoken (some 108 dialects are spoken in Fujian prov. alone). The written language is universal; Chinese ideographs are common to all the dialects.
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About 60% of Colombia's population are mestizos, and some one fifth are of European descent. Indigenous peoples, who account for only about 1% of today's population, live on the edge of some of the major cities and in remote areas. About 15% of the people are of mixed African and European descent. The small (less than 5%) black population is concentrated along the coasts and in the Magdalena and Cauca valleys. Spanish is the official language.
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The Czech Republic comprises the former provinces of Bohemia, Moravia, and Czech Silesia, together often called the Czech Lands. Almost 95% of the people are Czech, with small minorities of Slovaks, Germans, Poles, Gypsies, and Hungarians; Although many Czechs do not profess a religion, about 40% are Roman Catholic. Czech is the official language; Slovak is also spoken.
- Danish Escorts
In addition to Denmark's Scandinavian majority, there are Eskimo, Faeroese and German minorities. Almost all the inhabitants of Denmark speak Danish (there are several dialects), and Faeroese, Greenlandic (an Eskimo dialect), and German are also spoken. Denmark has an excellent system of public education, developed largely in the 19th cent.
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- English Escorts
Great Britain is the fourth most populous country in Europe. The English constitute more than 80% of the nation's inhabitants. The Scottish make up nearly 10%, and there are smaller groups of Irish and Welsh descent. Great Britain's population has shown increasing ethnic diversity since the 1970s, when people from the West Indies, India, Pakistan, Africa, and China began immigrating;English is the universal language of Great Britain. In addition, about a quarter of the inhabitants of Wales speak Welsh and there are about 60,000 speakers of the Scottish form of Gaelic in Scotland.
- Estonian Escorts
Despite its northerly location, Estonia enjoys a mild climate because of marine influences. Estonians, who are ethnically and linguistically close to the Finns, make up about 65% of the population; Russians constitute almost 30%, and there are Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Finnish minorities. Estonian is the official language, but Russian, Latvian, and Lithuanian are also spoken.
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- Finish Escorts
Finland falls into three main geographical zones. Finland is made up of about three-quarters forest and woodland, and around 10% each water surface and arable land. Finnish and Swedish are both official languages, and about 6% of the population speaks Swedish as a first language. In addition, there are about 3,000 Lapps living in Finnish Lapland.
- French Escorts
French is the nation's language. There are also a number of regional dialects, which are largely declining in usage. Alsatian, a German dialect, is spoken in Alsace and in parts of Lorraine. A small number speak Flemish, a Dutch dialect, in French Flanders. In Celtic Brittany, Breton is still spoken, as is Basque in the Bayonne region, Provencal in Provence, Catalan at the eastern end of the Pyrenees, and Corsican on the island of Corsica.
- Georgian Escorts
Situated on the southern slopes of the Greater Caucasus and in the Lesser Caucasus, Georgia is largely ruggedly mountainous. More than two thirds of the population are Georgians a people who speak a language related to the Ibero-Caucasian family of languages. Armenians, Azeris, and Russians are the other major ethnic groups, with Ossetians, Abkhazians, and Adjars in smaller numbers. Georgian is the official language.
- German Escorts
Germany as a whole can be divided into three major geographic regions: the low-lying German plain, the central German uplands, and, in the south, the ranges of the Central Alps and other uplands. Virtually all citizens of the country speak German. Danes, Frisians, Gypsies, and Sorbs or Wends comprise the indigenous non-German-speaking minorities.
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The country falls into four main geographical regions. Northern Greece includes portions of historic Epirus, Macedonia, and Thrace. The Greek people are only partly descended from the ancient Greeks, having mingled through the ages with the numerous invaders of the Balkans. Modern vernacular Greek is the official language. There is a small Turkish-speaking minority, and many Greeks also speak English and French.
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- Hungarian Escorts
To the east of the Danube, the Great Hungarian Plain (Hung. Alfold) extends beyond the Hungarian boundaries to the Carpathians and the Transylvanian Alps. Situated on a plain near the geographic center of Europe, Hungary has been the meeting place and battleground of many peoples, and its heterogeneous population was often the cause of social upheaval before 1919. The Magyars constitute about 90% of the population. There are small minorities of Gypsies, Germans, Serbs, and other groups. Hungarian is the official language.
- Indian Escorts
India is the world's second most populous nation (after China). Its ethnic composition is complex, but two major strains predominate: the Aryan, in the north, and the Dravidian, in the south. India is a land of great cultural diversity, as is evidenced by the enormous number of different languages spoken throughout the country.
- Indonesian Escorts
The population falls roughly into two groups, the Malayan and the Papuan, with many of the inhabitants east of Bali representing a transition between the two types. Within each group are numerous subdivisions, and cultural development ranges from the modern Javanese and Balinese to traditional tribes in Borneo, Sumatra, and Papua. The complex ethnic structure is the result of several great migrations many centuries ago, largely from Asia. More than 300 languages are spoken in Indonesia, but an official language, Bahasa Indonesia (regarded as the purest Malay), has been adopted and has spread rapidly; it is now understood in all but the most remote villages.
- Irish Escorts
Ireland, Irish Eire [to it are related the poetic Erin and perhaps the Latin Hibernia], island, 32,598 sq mi (84,429 sq km), second largest of the British Isles. The island is divided into two major political units×Northern Ireland (see Ireland, Northern), which is joined with Great Britain in the United Kingdom, and the Republic of Ireland (see Ireland, Republic of). Of the 32 counties of Ireland, 26 lie in the Republic, and of the four historic provinces, three and part of the fourth are in the Republic.
- Italian Escorts
The Italian peninsula, bootlike in shape and traversed in its entire length by the Apennines (which continue on into Sicily), comprises central Italy (Marche, Tuscany, Umbria, and Latium regions) and southern Italy (Campania, Basilicata, Abruzzi, Molise, Calabria, and Apulia regions). The great majority of the population speaks Italian (including several dialects); there are small German-, French-, and Slavic-speaking minorities.
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Slightly more than half of the population consists of Letts and of the closely related Latgalians (both widely known as Latvians). About one third of the people are Russians, and there are Belarusian, Ukrainian, Lithuanian, and Polish minorities. Latvian is the official language; Lithuanian, Russian, and other languages are also spoken. After independence (1991), Latvia sought to limit citizenship in order to favor Latvians and other Balts over ethnic Russians and other minorities.
- Lithuanian Escorts
Lithuania is a flatland, drained by the Nemen River. In addition to the capital, other important cities are Kaunas, Klaipeda (Memel), and Siauliai. About 80% of the population is Lithuanian; there are Russian, Polish, Belarusian, Latvian, and Jewish minorities. The Lithuanians speak a Baltic language (see Balts), which is the official language; Polish and Russian are also widely spoken.
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- Malaysian Escorts
Nearly all of the Malays are Muslims, and Islam is the national religion. The majority of Chinese are Buddhists, and the majority of Indians are Hindu. The official language is Bahasa Malaysia (Malay), although English is used in the legal system. Chinese (largely Mandarin), Tamil, and regional ethnic languages and dialects are also widely spoken.
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The great majority of the population are of mixed Spanish and indigenous descent and speak Spanish, the official language, as their first language. Various Mayan dialects are also spoken. Since precolonial times Mexican architects, painters, writers, and musicians have produced a rich cultural heritage.
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- Norwegian Escorts
Most of the population is concentrated along the southern coast and valleys, where the chief cities Oslo, Bergen, Stavanger, Kristiansand, and Drammen×are located. The majority of Norwegians are of Scandinavian stock, but in the northern county of Finnmark, Lapps and Finns predominate.
- Pakistani Escorts
Pakistan is bordered by India on the east, the Arabian Sea on the south, Iran on the southwest, and Afghanistan on the west and north; in the northeast is the disputed territory (with India) of Kashmir, of which the part occupied by Pakistan borders on China. Pakistani-controlled Kashmir is divided into the Northern Areas and Azad Kashmir.
- Polish Escorts
Poland is divided into 16 provinces. In addition to the capital and major ports, the country's major cities include Bialystok, Bydgoszcz, Bytom, Czestochowa, Gdansk, Gliwice, Katowice, Krakow, Lodz, Lublin, Poznan, Radom, Tarnowskie Gory, and Wroclaw. Nearly the entire population is Polish-speaking.
- Portuguese Escorts
Under a 1987 agreement, Portugal's last overseas territory, Macao, reverted to Chinese sovereignty at the end of 1999. The majority of the Portuguese people are Roman Catholic. Portugal has several universities, including ones at Coimbra, Oporto, and Lisbon.
- Romanian Escorts
The Danube River, which forms part of the border with Serbia and Montenegro and almost all of the frontier with Bulgaria, traverses Romania in the southeast; its tributary, the Prut, constitutes most of the border with Moldova and Ukraine. Romania includes seven historic and geographic regions: Walachia, Moldavia, Transylvania, and parts of Bukovina, Crisana-Maramures, the Dobruja, and the Banat. Other ethnic groups include Ukrainians, Serbs, Croats, Gypsies, Russians, and Turks.
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There are at least 60 different recognized ethnic groups in Russia. The majority of the population are Russians (83%). There are also Ukrainians (3%) and such non-Slavic linguistic and ethnic groups as Tatars (3%), Bashkirs, Chuvash, Komi, Komi-Permyaks, Udmurts, Mari, Mordovians, Jews, Germans, Armenians, and numerous groups in the Far North and in the Caucasus.
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Most of Slovakia is traversed by the Carpathian Mts., including the Tatra and the Beskids. Slovaks comprise about 85% of the population; other groups include Hungarians (over 10%), Gypsies, and Czechs (who are ethnically and linguistically related to the Slovaks, but have a separate history and cultural traditions).
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Most of Slovenia is situated in the Karst plateau and in the Julian Alps. The Slovenes constitute nearly all of the population, but there are Hungarian and Italian minorities. Following the breakup of Yugoslavia, Slovenia's economy grew and tourism increased markedly, unimpeded by the warfare that devastated other regions. The country's chief trading partners are Germany, Italy, and Croatia. Slovenia is a member of the European Union.
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- Swedish Escorts
The great majority of the nation's population speaks Swedish and is descended from Scandinavian tribes (see Germans); there is a sizable Finnish-speaking minority and a small Lapp-speaking minority. About 12% of the population is foreign born.
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German, French, and Italian are Switzerland's major and official languages; Romansh (a Rhaeto-Roman dialect spoken in parts of the Grisons) was designated a semiofficial language in 1996, entitled to federal funds to help promote its continued use. German dialects (Schwyzerdutsch) are spoken by about 65% of the inhabitants. French, spoken by about 20% of the population, predominates in the southwest; Italian, spoken by about 8%, is the language of Ticino, in the south. The few Romansh-speakers are in the southeast.
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Although the population in the north is relatively sparse, rice is intensively cultivated in the river valleys, and one of the country's major cities, Chiang Mai, is in that area. Thailand has a large Chinese minority, accounting for almost 15% of the population. Other substantial minorities include the Muslim Malays, concentrated in the southern peninsula; the hill tribes of the north; the Khmers, or Cambodians, who are found in the southeast and on the Cambodian border; and the Vietnamese, chiefly recent refugees who live along the Mekong River.
- Turkish Escorts
Although the Turks regard the Osmanlis, or Ottomans, as their ancestors, they are a highly composite ethnic mixture. More than three fourths of the population is Turkish; Kurds make up most of the rest. The official language is Turkish, and Kurdish is widely used in the south and southeast; there is also an Arabic-speaking minority.
- Ukrainian Escorts
Ukrainians make up slightly less than three fourths of the population; Russians constitute around 22%, Jews around 1%, and there are Polish, Belarusian, Moldovan, and Hungarian minorities. The republic's many educational and cultural institutions include seven universities.
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The land is an area of topographical transition from the humid Argentine Pampa to the uplands of S Brazil. Most of the population is concentrated in the south; over 40% live in Montevideo. Almost 90% of Uruguay's people are of European descent, Spanish and Italian predominating; there are few pure indigenous Uruguayans.
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Densely populated, the highland region is the political and commercial hub of the nation. The politically and economically dominant landowning class is mainly of Spanish descent. About 65% of the population is mestizo, 20% white, 10% black, and 2% indigenous. Spanish is the official language. There is no established church, but nearly all Venezuelans are nominally Roman Catholic. There are 20 universities in the country.
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