The world’s most and least ethnically diverse countries

[Jamaal510]

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/05/16/a-revealing-map-of-the-worlds-most-and-least-ethnically-diverse-countries/
[IMG][/IMG]

Ethnicity, like race, is a social construct, but it’s still a construct with significant implications for the world. How people perceive ethnicity, both their own and that of others, can be tough to measure, particularly given that it’s so subjective. So how do you study it?

When five economists and social scientists set out to measure ethnic diversity for a landmark 2002 paper for the Harvard Institute of Economic Research, they started by comparing data from an array of different sources: national censuses, Encyclopedia Brittanica, the CIA, Minority Rights Group International and a 1998 study called “Ethnic Groups Worldwide.” They looked for consistence and inconsistence in the reports to determine what data set would be most reliable and complete. Because data sources such as censuses or surveys are self-reported – in other words, people are classified how they ask to be classified – the ethnic group data reflects how people see themselves, not how they’re categorized by outsiders. Those results measured 650 ethnic groups in 190 countries.

One thing the Harvard Institute authors did with all that data was measure it for what they call ethnic fractionalization. Another word for it might be diversity. They gauged this by asking an elegantly simple question: If you called up two people at random in a particular country and ask them their ethnicity, what are the odds that they would give different answers? The higher the odds, the more ethnically “fractionalized” or diverse the country.

[JDPriestly]

1. Parts of the United States, like Southern California, are extremely diverse.

Other parts, like small towns in the Mid-west, are not.

So, just lumping the US together with one color does not tell the story.

[BeyondGeography]

2. Canada?

Doubt it's more diverse than the U.S. Agree with the writer and his possible explanation:

I was surprised to see Canada rate as more diverse than the United States or even Mexico; it’s possible that the survey counted Quebecois as ethnically distinct, although I can’t say for sure.

[BainsBane]

4. Canada has quite a bit of immigration

[BeyondGeography]

7. Wouldn't surprise me if the answer is Quebec

[PDJane]

17. I can stand on the corner of Yonge and Dundas for 20 minutes

And see every race, religion and colour pass by, We have everyone from everywhere, and it makes a better place to live in.

We have people from everywhere either living or working here. The guy next door is from Barbados via Ireland. He's black, his wife is white and Irish. On the other side, he's Greek and she's Russian. My mother's pcw this week is from Egypt. The guy who owns the corner store is an Arab from Israel. There are three institutes of higher learning within walking distance; they attract foreign students. There is at least one Palestinian professor at U of T. There is a Metis professor at Ryerson. The young woman who sells me my glasses is from Lebanon. The man who does the eye test is Chinese. The woman at the front desk is from Vietnam. The man who cuts my hair is from Scotland. These are only the people I know, personally. Most people in Canada live in cities, and many of those people come from elsewhere; the Ukraine, Russia, the middle east, south America. My son's girlfriend is from Costa Rica. His business partner is from India.

Trust me, the whole answer is not Quebec.

[BeyondGeography]

19. You sound like one of the people this writer is poking fun at

The U.S. Census Bureau has reported that more than half the children being born in the United States now belong to racial or ethnic minorities, which is a first.

Meanwhile, Statistics Canada says that in Canada, close to 40% of children under the age of one will be visible minorities by the year 2031.

So, while I don’t think either piece of news is Earth-shattering, or cause for either alarm or celebration, I do find the comparison interesting.

Canadians tend to go on (and on) about what diverse a country they live in, but when you look at the children (our future, as Whitney Houston liked to remind us), the United States appears to be far ahead of us in terms of its proportion of minorities – over 50%, while we won’t reach 40% for another couple decades.

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/05/18/marni-soupcoff-canada-talks-the-diversity-talk-but-the-u-s-walks-the-diversity-walk

[PDJane]

20. Again, it depends. Our small towns, the bedroom communities and the boonies tend to be white.

And, of course, the First Nations people are not necessarily counted in minority status; we are busily trying to reframe the argument and deny treaty status to more and more of them. That way, the treaties can be abrogated with impunity. French are a minority, but not necessarily counted that way either, especially in Quebec.

It's good, bad, and indifferent......but I live right downtown in Toronto. As in, three blocks from the Eaton's centre, and from where I sit, and from the people I know and associate with, this is a VERY multicultural city. Remember, too, that we are a commonwealth country; that means that we have a system that attracts those immigrants from other commonwealth countries including, until the handover, Chinese from Hong Kong. *shrug* Facts of life. That is why there is a high proportion of Sikh farmers and Chinese in BC, as well. Alberta is not necessarily so diverse; Ottawa is. Toronto is. Vancouver is. Newfoundland/Labrador isn't.

[BeyondGeography]

21. It's a great place...I do miss my annual business trips to Toronto

Then again, I could drive there from upstate NY. One of these days...Quebec City is my fave tho. Nothing like a good fondue and a bracing after-dinner walk on the Plains of Abraham.

[Drahthaardogs]

38. It broke my heart to learn in May that the Corriere Canadese was no more...

The end of an institution

[muriel_volestrangler]

35. Diversity in a single spot counts for very little in this measure

It's only about the population of the whole country. And with Canada having a figure, from 1991 Encyclopedia Britannica data, of 0.71, well above the US's 0.49 (2000 Census data), that will surely be because French-Canadian has been counted as a separate ethnicity from 'British-Canadian' (or whatever they called it). They may well have separated 'British origin' from other European origin, as the CIA does (and this is present-day data, not 1991):

British Isles origin 28%, French origin 23%, other European 15%, Amerindian 2%, other, mostly Asian, African, Arab 6%, mixed background 26%

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ca.html

[polly7]

50. I live in a small town in SE SK.

We have people from every ethnicity here and in our surrounding area. Regina is a very diverse cities and it's small by most standards. I have no doubt that Canada should be exactly where it is on the list.

[Spider Jerusalem]

26. Ethnicity is not race; note "ethnically diverse" and not "racially diverse"

The Quebecois are white, but they represent a distinct ethnic group; they've lived in the same territory for centuries, have a wholly separate and distinct language and culture from that of Anglophone Canada, a different religion (historically, at least; Anglophone Canada being mostly Protestant and the Quebecois Catholic).

[BeyondGeography]

28. Apples and oranges

http://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2011/03/us-vs-canada-comparing-oranges-and.html#.Ufrarmt5mSM

Canada was about 84% white in 2006; the U.S. 80%, and minority birth rates are much higher here than in Canada. As for "distinct ethnic groups," our white population is far from a monolith, even if it is counted as such.

[Spider Jerusalem]

31. And "white" is not an ethnicity.

The Quebecois are as much an ethnic group as the Basques in Spain; they're a totally separate population, with a distinct ancestral origin, speaking a different language, and having a distinct culture. (The Amish also constitute an ethnic group, for the same reason.)

[BeyondGeography]

32. Tell it to the Scots Irish...

I haven't been able to get through to them.

[Spider Jerusalem]

33. ...

"Scots-Irish" (or "Ulster Scots&quot is an ethnicity. You seem kind of confused by the concept.

[BeyondGeography]

36. Not at all, mon professeur

It's an ethnicity (though it gets lumped in with the general white population in these not terribly illuminating diversity studies) with a well-defined set of political behaviors and grievances, not unlike the Basques and the Quebecois. Jim Webb wrote a book about it:

http://www.amazon.com/Born-Fighting-Scots-Irish-Shaped-America/dp/0767916891

Born Fighting shows that the Scots-Irish were 40 percent of the Revolutionary War army; they included the pioneers Daniel Boone, Lewis and Clark, Davy Crockett, and Sam Houston; they were the writers Edgar Allan Poe and Mark Twain; and they have given America numerous great military leaders, including Stonewall Jackson, Ulysses S. Grant, Audie Murphy, and George S. Patton, as well as most of the soldiers of the Confederacy (only 5 percent of whom owned slaves, and who fought against what they viewed as an invading army). It illustrates how the Scots-Irish redefined American politics, creating the populist movement and giving the country a dozen presidents, including Andrew Jackson, Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton. And it explores how the Scots-Irish culture of isolation, hard luck, stubbornness, and mistrust of the nation’s elite formed and still dominates blue-collar America, the military services, the Bible Belt, and country music.

Both a distinguished work of cultural history and a human drama that speaks straight to the heart of contemporary America, Born Fighting reintroduces America to its most powerful, patriotic, and individualistic cultural group—one too often ignored or taken for granted.

[KamaAina]

14. Van and T.O. trade the title of "world's most multicultural city"

as measured by the UN. Take a hike, NYC, LA, London, etc., eh?

[Posteritatis]

22. Spend twenty minutes in Toronto and then get back to us. (nt)

[BeyondGeography]

23. We have just as many white people at Ranger games as the Leafs

We call them all Caucasians though.

[SidDithers]

24. Canada is much more ethnically diverse than the US...

Toronto is one of the most multicultural cities in the World.

Sid

[pampango]

52. Canada's immigration rate is 2 1/2 times that of the US and has been for decades.

Multiculturalism is a part of their constitution.

[eissa]

3. Turkey is more diverse than the US, Europe and Australia?

I find that REALLY hard to believe. Like, really, really hard to believe.

[cthulu2016]

5. Remember the Kurds

[eissa]

13. And.....?

Well aware of the Kurds. As well as a few surviving Armenians, Assyrians and Pontic Greeks. Maybe a dash of Chechens, Azeris and other Caucas nations (although some could argue that they have Turkish origins, but that's another thread.) I'm sure Istanbul has a sizeable ex-pat community, and there might be some European dwellers around the coastal towns. But the rest of the country is nowhere near as diverse as Tucson or Orlando, let alone Chicago or NYC.

[CJCRANE]

25. And Chechens, Uzbeks, Kazaks, Kyrgyzis, Turkmenis etc. etc.

Not to mention all of the various European ethnicities.

Turkey sits right on the border between Europe and Asia. They may all seem the same to us but the reality on the ground is probably very different.

It's like Africa. I didn't realize there were so many different tribes and ethnicities until I went there (and I only saw a fraction of them).

[muriel_volestrangler]

34. Less than the US

If you want the exact figures, the paper is available here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=319762

Turkey's ethnic 'fractionalization' is 0.32 (from CIA World Factbook numbers), the USA 0.49 (from the 2000 Census) (higher is more diverse). The present-day CIA Factbook says, for Turkey,
Turkish 70-75%, Kurdish 18%, other minorities 7-12%

The one I find surprising is Spain, at 0.42 (from 1991 data in the Encyclopedia Britannica). Even if Catalan and Galacian are taken as separate ethnicities, the language split the CIA Factbook gives is:
Castilian Spanish (official) 74%, Catalan 17%, Galician 7%, and Basque 2%
so you'd expect a figure about the same as Turkey's. It even puts Spain's religious fractionalization at 0.45, and that's in a country that's 94% Roman Catholic according to the CIA.

'Europe', of course, doesn't have a figure. Apart from Spain, some countries like Belgium (about 50-50 Walloon and Flemish) and Switzerland (French, German, Italian, Romansh) do have high figures, but the point is that countries have largely been formed along ethnic lines.

Australia (0.09, 1986 Enc Brit data) is probably counting all European descent as one ethnicity (though, for 1986, it might even count some as different, eg Greek v. British, and still arrive at that figure). While there's a lot of variation in Aboriginal groups, their numbers are small, and so they can't push the number that high.

[pampango]

53. That is not what the graphic shows. Quite the opposite. n/t

[eissa]

58. Oy!

I need to get my eyes checked

[maxsolomon]

6. It's the construct of an "ethnicity".

yes, there are more TRIBES in Somalia and Afghanistan than the US.

this is NOT "diversity".

[cthulu2016]

10. Correct. Not more diverse, but more “fractionalized”

I think the study is probably a useful measure of potential civil strife because if people think of themselves as X and as their neighbor as Y that is an indicator of division, even if they are the same ethnic group.

But as a measure of ethnic diversity, it is problematic.

But then, what non self-reported measure of ethnicity would we use? You see the problem, there.

[Scootaloo]

15. And what, exactly, do you know about Somalia or Afghanistan?

Can't be very much.

It's also amusing how you apparently think people need your permission to identify themselves as an ethnic group.

Let me guess - you're caucasian, right?

[maxsolomon]

29. Wow you sure nailed me. I am indeed from the Caucasus. Worse yet, I am MALE.

I'm glad I could amuse you.

I don't think "people" need my permission to do anything, and I resent your implication that it is indicative of white privilege or geographical ignorance. What's YOUR level of expertise on the ethnicities of Somalia and Afghanistan? Why are you trying to pick a fight?

I simply reject the premise of this survey - that countries such as Somalia is more "diverse" than the US, where we have every "ethnicity" from Somalia, plus every "ethnicity" from Ethiopia, Eritrea, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, China, India, etc. ad infinitum. I am proud of America's diversity.

[Scootaloo]

37. I'm not "picking a fight," I think you don't know what you're talking about

Ethnicity is self-identified. That's the first thing to keep in mind. It is a social construct, but then so is nationality and I don't see anyone bitching that the map has borders - most are in fact arguing on nationalist premises as you are, "Our nation is the bestest!"

Think of it this way. Vietnam recognizes 54 distinct ethnic groups within its borders. There are many others not given official recognition as well, for... whatever reasons Vietnam has for that, I don't pretend to know. But that's 54 ethnic groups, not counting immigrant populations. These people identify themselves as Co, as Hao, as Tay, as Hmong, as whoever.

In the 70's and 80's there was a lot of immigration from Vietnam to the United States. Undoubtedly these people came from all sorts of ethnic groups within Vietnam, not just the Viet people. Once in the Us however, all these different ethnic groups ended up having way more in common with each other than with the society they found themselves in, and so identify as a whole group. You don't find many Chu Ru-Americans or Xinh-Mah-Americans... you find Vietnamese-Americans. This isn't always the case, of course - some ethnic groups are large enough, or end up isolated from the overall immigrant population and form distinct ethnic immigrant communities - so you will find Hmong-Americans, for example.

Scale of population also has a lot to do with the map, from what I gather. For instance, a larger proportion of Canada's population is native American than the US, and most first nations identify as distinct ethnic groups. So Canada, which has the same swath of immigrant representation as the United States, also has greater diversity and population of Native American peoples.

When you dismiss peoples' own claims of ethnicity and proclaim "tribes aren't ethnic groups," that's a belittling, dismissive attitude, and is in fact you claiming that these people must have your permission to identify as an ethnic group. Maybe that's not your intent, I'm going to guess that it's not. But that is the effect.

[Xithras]

27. It's not just about "tribes"

A Pashto and an Uzbek are just as culturally different as a Frenchman and a German. Different language, different cultural norms, different history, etc. Heck, the Nuristani's, who have an attested history stretching back over 2000 years and who may have been in the region since prehistoric times, frequently have blue eyes, blonde hair, and have next to nothing in common with the neighbors surrounding them. They didn't even become Muslim until about 100 years ago.

As percentages of the population, there is more ethnic diversity in Afghanistan than in all of the U.S.

[maxsolomon]

30. And I think it's that percentage that the survey is measuring.

If there's 5 ethnicities, all with 20% of the population, then that's more "diverse" than a country with 100 ethnicities, but one is >50% of the total.

[XemaSab]

44. I respectfully disagree

I think the problem here is that most white people in the US, when asked their ethnicity, are like "Durr, white?"

I'm half Swedish, a quarter German, and a quarter Scots-Irish.

What do I even say when asked my ethnicity?

I'm an American first and foremost. I celebrate my ethnic diversity more as a curiosity than as an actual identity. Like if someone asked me my ethnicity I would say "white."

I call shenanigans on the map in the OP because we've got people in the US from literally every country on earth, and the people who are actually FROM here are a tiny (but incredibly diverse) percent of the population. Pick any two white people (or black people, Asian people, Native Americans, or any other people really) and you're going to get different mixtures. My closest friends are Italian and Hungarian; French and Polish; Chinese and Swedish; and Russian, English and German. I have friends with last names from almost every European country and a few non-European countries.

The map in the OP reflects Balkanization more than it reflects actual ethnic diversity.

[cali]

8. I'm not sure I'm buying into their particular construct of ethnicity.

[cthulu2016]

11. One can argue both sides of that... See #10

[hunter]

9. The USA has places of great ethnic diversity...

... and places that are not.

I live in a community of greater diversity, I'm guessing it would be one of the dark green places. There must be lot of less diverse places in this nation to dilute that. It would be interesting to see the U.S. map broken down by county.

[cali]

12. this is absurd: reading further we discover that the map and study are 11 years old

some of the data dates back to the late 80s. The article notes that conceptions of ethnicity can change over time.

not to mention that this is all about self-identified ethnic differentiation.

from the article:

Another caveat is that people in different countries might have different bars for what constitutes a distinct ethnicity. These data, then, could be said to measure the perception of ethnic diversity more than the diversity itself; given that ethnicity is a social construct, though those two metrics are not necessarily as distinct as one might think. Finally, as the paper notes, “It would be wrong to interpret our ethnicity variable as reflecting racial characteristics alone.” Ethnicity might partially coincide with race, but they’re not the same thing.

Got that: it measure THE PERCEPTION OF ETHNIC DIVERSITY MORE THAN THE DIVERSITY ITSELF
I hate silly shit.

[cthulu2016]

16. Which do you think more important? I would say the perception.

I don't see why you are upset that this is not a map of DNA markers, which is what it would have to be to be a map of objective ethnic diversity.

We do not have genetic definitions of ethnicities (and probably for the best) so there cannot be an objective measure.

I agree that the headline is poor because we think of "ethnic diversity" as something good, but the study is measuring something that is more bad than good, which is self-perceived ethnic divisions.

But that hardly makes it useless.

For instance, ask Frenchmen and Germans in 1870 their ethnicity and they would probably tend to say things like, French, German, Alsatian, Bavarian, etc..

Today I suspect more French and Germans would say European than would have in 1870.

And France and Germany are less likely to fight three wars in the next two generations than they were in 1870.

I doubt I could differentiate Tutsi and Hutu in Rwanda based on any reliable physical marker. But armed with the sociological datum that they think of themselves as being as separate as Arab and African in Sudan I would better understand the giant massacres.

I do agree the map is mislabeled, but the underlying study is an interesting measurement of what it was measuring.

Not the firs time that articles and academic press releases will have had less rigor than the underlying work.

Agreed that "diversity" is too loaded a word to use here.

[cali]

18. I'm not talking about DNA markers

and I agree that this could be useful insofar as potential ethic strife- if the data weren't so outdated, but it is and perception changes significantly over time.

[XemaSab]

45. Africa is MASSIVELY diverse, genetically

IIRC, moreso than the rest of the planet combined.

[treestar]

39. I don't think any place could be more ethnically diverse than the United States

How could those countries in Africa be more ethnically diverse? Or Peru? Doesn't make sense. The U.S. has immigrants from all over the world. Peru and Zimbabwe do NOT. Who friggin' goes TO Iran? Something wrong with their methods.

[Marr]

42. The US isn't special in that respect.

That line about the US being a nation of immigrants gives people the idea that we're somehow special in that respect. Every country in the western hemisphere is a nation of immigrants. The indigenous populations are almost always ethnic minorities.

There are big Chinese immigrant communities in Costa Rica, there are a lot of Japanese in Peru, the parts of Bolivia I've seen felt more like Europe than anything else, etc., etc. Everyplace has it's Little Ethiopias and Little Tokyos and whatever else you care to look for. And of course, every location has it's own little ethnic variations that we don't even recognize as foreigners.

[treestar]

47. I doubt it

There may be little enclaves here and there, but there is not the same amount of massive immigration over centuries. There are not tons of Japanese Bolivians but there are many Japanese Americans. Doubtful that there are a lot of Chinese Zimbabweans, though there may be a few.

The US is special in that respect (Canada and Australia may be similarly so). Latin American Countries are third world and have not attracted people from all over for centuries.

[Marr]

49. That's a completely ethnocentric position.

What's the essential difference between English, Germans, and Irish in North America and Portuguese, Spanish, and Italians in South America? Only your particular point of view.

Just a factoid here, in the 19th century, more Italians moved to South America than North America. The German influence in South and Central America is very pronounced, too. I see no fundamental difference apart from popular national mythology.

[XemaSab]

51. Argentina:

white (mostly Spanish and Italian) 97%, mestizo (mixed white and Amerindian ancestry), Amerindian, or other non-white groups 3%

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ar.html

That doesn't sound very diverse.

[muriel_volestrangler]

57. But it is given a lower figure than the USA

0.26, compared to 0.49. It is possible that Spanish and Italian descent were counted as different ethnicities in Argentina, but not in the USA - getting a consistent definition for the entire world is not easy.

[treestar]

56. Still, immigration to the US continues into this century

The Portuguese, Spanish and Italians have come to the US in huge numbers, too. Migration from South America to the US occurs too, whereas we don't see the opposite. The US has huge numbers of immigrants from each South American country, so many of those ethnic groups are here, too.

[Xithras]

43. The problem...

...is that many American's mistakenly assume that people in other countries are of a single ethnicity. They're not. Presuming that Zimbabwe consists of only people of a Zimbabwean ethnicity is about as valid as saying that all Americans are of an "American" ethicity. In truth, Zimbabwe is so diverse that it has 17 official languages...all of which originated within their own borders.

Same largely goes for Iran, which consists of at least 10 major ethnicities with distinct cultures. Many were fully independent countries and kingdoms at various times in history before being conquered by the Persians and having their land incorporated into Persia/Iran. The people we think of as "Iranian" are usually of Persian ethnicity, but there are lots of people in Persia who are not.

A map of the major ethnic groups of Iran. Persians are more than 50% of the population only in the green areas:

[treestar]

48. I'm sure it is more than we normally think

But, the US has immigrants from likely all ten Iranian and all 17 Zimbabwean groups. Or from at least two of them. And at least two ethnicities of just about any other country.

[LittleBlue]

40. France homogenous?

There are a lot of Africans in France. I didn't realize it wasn't considered diverse.

[pampango]

55. France is diverse and getting moreso,but not to the extent of the US, yet.

In 2004, the Institut Montaigne estimated that there were 51 million (85%) White people, 6 million (10%) North African people, 2 million (3.5%) Black people and 1 million (1.5%) people of Asian origin in Metropolitan France.

In 2008, the French national institute of statistics INSEE estimated that 11.8 million foreign-born immigrants and their direct descendants (born in France) lived in France representing 19% of the country's population. More than 5 million are of European origin and about 4 million of Maghrebi origin. Immigrants aged 18–50 count for 2.7 millions (10% of population aged 18–50) and 5 millions for all ages (8% of population). 2nd Generation aged 18–50 make up 3.1 millions (12% of 18–50) and 6.5 millions for all ages (11% of population)

In 2004, a total of 140,033 people immigrated to France. Of them, 90,250 were from Africa and 13,710 from Europe. In 2008, France granted citizenship to 137,000 persons, mostly to people from Morocco, Algeria and Turkey.

France accepts about 200,000 legal immigrants each year. France is the leading asylum destination in Western Europe with an estimated 50,000 applications in 2005 (a 15% decrease from 2004). The European Union allows free movement between the member states.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France#Demographics

France's population is about 1/5 that of the US. It's immigration number is about 1/5 of the US' as well. About 2/3 of France's immigrants come from Africa with another 10% from European countries.

[limpyhobbler]

41. I think China has a lot more ethnic diversity than this picture indicates.

In China the central government encourages everyone to think of themselves as one "Chinese" ethnicity. People might be afraid to admit to pollsters that they identify with a different ethnicity. Or the poll may not have had a good sampling of people in China, possible even due to government influence.

[OldEurope]

59. And this is the major problem with this graphic!

Every government has ist own definitions for ethnicity. China does not accept Tibetians as an ethinicity, nor does Turkey accept Armenians or Kurds.

[Liberal_in_LA]

46. interesting map

thanks for posting.

[reformist2]

54. Ethinically? Seriously, WaPo???

Yes, typos in major publications bother me. Especially when they look like they might actually be spelling errors.