Ancestry & regional heritage
A coarse classification of the world region or regions a person's ancestors came from, framed independently of any single country's census categories. It sorts people by broad continental and sub-continental origin rather than by nationality, language, or ethnicity.
This is a broad self-identified grouping of geographic ancestry, not a precise genetic or scientific taxonomy; human populations vary continuously and these regions have fuzzy, overlapping boundaries. (Composite of common geographic-ancestry groupings used in demography and population studies; modern usage, mid-20th century onward)
Groups
- East Asian — Ancestry rooted in the eastern part of Asia, including regions such as China, Japan, Korea, and Mongolia.
- Southeast Asian — Ancestry rooted in the southeastern part of Asia, including regions such as Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines.
- South Asian — Ancestry rooted in the Indian subcontinent, including regions such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka.
- Central Asian — Ancestry rooted in the interior of Asia, including regions such as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and the surrounding steppe lands.
- West Asian / Middle Eastern — Ancestry rooted in western Asia and the Middle East, including regions such as the Levant, Arabia, Iran, and Anatolia.
- North African — Ancestry rooted in the northern part of Africa, including regions such as Morocco, Algeria, Libya, and Egypt.
- West African — Ancestry rooted in the western part of Africa, including regions such as Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal, and Mali.
- East African — Ancestry rooted in the eastern part of Africa, including regions such as Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, and Tanzania.
- Central African — Ancestry rooted in the central part of Africa, including regions such as the Congo Basin, Cameroon, and Chad.
- Southern African — Ancestry rooted in the southern part of Africa, including regions such as South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Namibia.
- Northern European — Ancestry rooted in the northern part of Europe, including regions such as Scandinavia, the Baltic states, and Britain and Ireland.
- Western European — Ancestry rooted in the western part of Europe, including regions such as France, Germany, the Low Countries, and Ireland.
- Southern European — Ancestry rooted in the southern part of Europe, including regions such as Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Greece.
- Eastern European — Ancestry rooted in the eastern part of Europe, including regions such as Poland, Ukraine, Russia, and the Balkans.
- Indigenous American (North) — Ancestry rooted in the Indigenous peoples of North America, including the present-day United States, Canada, and northern Mexico.
- Indigenous American (Central/South) — Ancestry rooted in the Indigenous peoples of Central and South America, from Mesoamerica through the Andes and Amazon basin.
- Caribbean — Ancestry rooted in the islands of the Caribbean, often reflecting a mix of African, European, Indigenous, and South Asian origins.
- Melanesian — Ancestry rooted in Melanesia, including regions such as Papua New Guinea, Fiji, the Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu.
- Polynesian — Ancestry rooted in Polynesia, including regions such as Hawaii, Samoa, Tonga, Aotearoa New Zealand, and the wider Pacific triangle.
- Micronesian — Ancestry rooted in Micronesia, including regions such as Guam, the Marshall Islands, Kiribati, and Palau.
- Aboriginal Australian — Ancestry rooted in the Aboriginal peoples of the Australian continent, distinct from the Torres Strait Islander peoples.
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