Cape Verdeans, also called Cabo Verdeans (), are a people native to

Cape Verde Cape Verde or Cabo Verde, officially the Republic of Cabo Verde, is an island country and archipelagic state of West Africa in the central Atlantic Ocean, consisting of ten volcanic islands with a combined land area of about . These islands ...

, an island nation in

West Africa West Africa, also known as Western Africa, is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations geoscheme for Africa#Western Africa, United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Gha ...

consisting of an archipelago in the central

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the ...

. Cape Verde is a multi-ethnic society, which means that it is home to people of many different ethnic backgrounds. Cabo Verdeans do not consider their nationality as an ethnicity but as a citizenship with various ethnicities.

Ethnic groups

The

archipelago An archipelago ( ), sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster, or collection of islands. An archipelago may be in an ocean, a sea, or a smaller body of water. Example archipelagos include the Aegean Islands (the o ...

was uninhabited when the Portuguese landed there in 1456. Africans from the main lands and Arabs from adjacent

were brought to the islands to work on Portuguese plantations. As a result, many Cape Verdeans are of ''

mixed ethnicity The term multiracial people refers to people who are mixed with two or more races (human categorization), races and the term multi-ethnic people refers to people who are of more than one ethnicity, ethnicities. A variety of terms have been used ...

''. European ancestors also include Italian, British and French. The last time Cape Verde counted racial origin was in the 1950 census. Italian seamen who were granted land by the

Portuguese Empire The Portuguese Empire was a colonial empire that existed between 1415 and 1999. In conjunction with the Spanish Empire, it ushered in the European Age of Discovery. It achieved a global scale, controlling vast portions of the Americas, Africa ...

, were followed by Portuguese settlers, exiles, and

Portuguese Jews Spanish and Portuguese Jews, also called Western Sephardim, Iberian Jews, or Peninsular Jews, are a distinctive sub-group of Sephardic Jews who are largely descended from Jews who lived as New Christians in the Iberian Peninsula during the fe ...

(''

lançados The ''lançados'' (literally, ''the launched ones'') were settlers and colonizers of Portuguese origin in Senegambia, Cabo Verde, Guinea, Sierra Leone, and other areas on the coast of West Africa. Many were Jews—often New Christians—escaping ...

'') who were victims of the

Inquisition The Inquisition was a Catholic Inquisitorial system#History, judicial procedure where the Ecclesiastical court, ecclesiastical judges could initiate, investigate and try cases in their jurisdiction. Popularly it became the name for various med ...

. Many foreigners from other parts of the world settled in Cape Verde as their permanent country. Most of them were Dutch, French,

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

, Spanish, or the English, as well as

Arab Arabs (, , ; , , ) are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in West Asia and North Africa. A significant Arab diaspora is present in various parts of the world. Arabs have been in the Fertile Crescent for thousands of years ...

s and Jews (from

Lebanon Lebanon, officially the Republic of Lebanon, is a country in the Levant region of West Asia. Situated at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian Peninsula, it is bordered by Syria to the north and east, Israel to the south ...

and

Morocco Morocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to Algeria–Morocc ...

). The most important ethnic roots for Cape Verde based on historically known presence, cultural retention and ancestral connections are those of the Mandinga, Wolof, Biafada, Papel and Bainouk ethnicities, while the remaining suspected ethnicities will show much variation in actual contributions to Cape Verde's ethnogenesis. But for each of them there is some kind of historical testimony to their presence in Cape Verde, which are the Fula, Sereer,

Diola The Jola or Diola (endonym: Ajamat) are an ethnic group found in Senegal, the Gambia, and Guinea-Bissau. Most Jola live in small villages scattered throughout southern Senegal, especially in the Lower Casamance region. The main dialect of the J ...

, Cassanga, Basari/Tenda, Balanta, Bijagos, Nalu, Cocoli, Baga, Susu, Jallonké, Bambara and Sape.

Diaspora

Prior to independence in 1975, many thousands of people emigrated from drought-stricken

Portuguese Cape Verde Cape Verde was a colony of the Portuguese Empire from the initial settlement of the Cape Verde Islands in 1462 until the independence of Cape Verde in 1975. History 15th century The islands of Cape Verde were discovered in 1460-62 by Pri ...

, formerly an

overseas province Overseas province () was a designation used by Portugal for its overseas possessions, located outside Europe. History In the early the 19th century, Portuguese overseas territories were referred to as "overseas dominions", but administrative re ...

of Portugal. Because these people arrived using their Portuguese passports, they were registered as Portuguese immigrants by the authorities. Today, more Cape Verdeans live abroad than in Cape Verde itself, with significant emigrant Cape Verdean communities in Brazil and in the United States (102,000 of Cape Verdeans descent in the U.S., with a major concentration on the

New England New England is a region consisting of six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the ...

coast from

Providence, Rhode Island Providence () is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Rhode Island, most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. The county seat of Providence County, Rhode Island, Providence County, it is o ...

, to

New Bedford, Massachusetts New Bedford is a city in Bristol County, Massachusetts, United States. It is located on the Acushnet River in what is known as the South Coast region. At the 2020 census, New Bedford had a population of 101,079, making it the state's ninth-l ...

). In 2008, Portugal's National Statistics Institute estimated that there were 68,145 Cape Verdeans who legally resided in Portugal. This made up "15.7% of all foreign nationals living legally in the country."A Semana. "Cape Verdeans make up 15.7% of all foreigners in Portugal." Retrieved January 20, 2008.

Languages

Cape Verde's official language is Portuguese. It is the language of instruction and government.

Cape Verdean Creole Cape Verdean Creole is a Portuguese-based creole languages, Portuguese-based creole language spoken on the islands of Cape Verde. It is the native creole language of virtually all Cape Verdeans and is used as a second language by the Cape Verd ...

is used colloquially, and is the mother tongue of virtually all Cape Verdeans. Cape Verdean Creole or ''Kriolu'' is a Portuguese-based creole, on a

dialect continuum A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of Variety (linguistics), language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulat ...

, that came from

Guinea-Bissau Creole Guinea-Bissau Creole, also known as Kiriol or Crioulo, is a creole language whose lexicon derives mostly from Portuguese. It is spoken in Guinea Bissau, Cape Verde, Senegal and The Gambia. It is also called by its native speakers as , , or . G ...

. There is a substantial body of literature in Creole, especially in the Santiago Creole and the São Vicente Creole. Creole has been gaining prestige since the nation's independence from Portugal.

Religion

More than 80% of the population of

is nominally

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

, according to an informal poll taken by local churches.International Religious Freedom Report 2007: Cape Verde
United States Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (September 14, 2007). ''This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no Exclusive exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly Waiver, waived, or may be inapplicable. Because no one holds ...

.'' About 5% of the population is Protestant. The largest

Protestant Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that emphasizes Justification (theology), justification of sinners Sola fide, through faith alone, the teaching that Salvation in Christianity, salvation comes by unmerited Grace in Christianity, divin ...

denomination is the

Church of the Nazarene The Church of the Nazarene is an evangelical Christian denomination that emerged in North America from the Wesleyan-Holiness movement within Methodism during the late 19th century. The denomination has its headquarters in Lenexa, Kansas. and it ...

. Other religious groups include the

Seventh-day Adventist Church The Seventh-day Adventist Church (SDA) is an Adventist Protestant Christian denomination which is distinguished by its observance of Saturday, the seventh day of the week in the Christian (Gregorian) and the Hebrew calendar, as the Sa ...

the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, informally known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church, is a Nontrinitarianism, nontrinitarian Restorationism, restorationist Christianity, Christian Christian denomination, denomination and the ...

, the

Assemblies of God The World Assemblies of God Fellowship (WAGF), commonly known as the Assemblies of God (AG), is a global cooperative body or communion of over 170 Pentecostal denominations that was established on August 15, 1989. The WAGF was created to provi ...

, the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, the

New Apostolic Church The New Apostolic Church (NAC) is a Christian denomination, Christian church of the Catholic Apostolic Church, Irvingian tradition. Its origins are in 1863, in the split from the Catholic Apostolic Church during a schism in Hamburg, Ger ...

, and various other

Pentecostal Pentecostalism or classical Pentecostalism is a movement within the broader Evangelical wing of Protestantism, Protestant Christianity that emphasizes direct personal experience of God in Christianity, God through Baptism with the Holy Spirit#Cl ...

and

evangelical Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide, interdenominational movement within Protestantism, Protestant Christianity that emphasizes evangelism, or the preaching and spreading of th ...

groups. There are also small Baháʼí communities and a small

Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

community. The number of

atheists Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no ...

is estimated at less than 1 percent of the population.

Culture

The

culture Culture ( ) is a concept that encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and Social norm, norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, Social norm, customs, capabilities, Attitude (psychology), attitudes ...

of Cape Verde reflects its mixed West African ( Badiu) and Portuguese roots. It is well known for its diverse forms of music such as '' Morna'', and a wide variety of dances: the soft dance ''Morna'', the '' Funaná'', the extreme sensuality of '' coladeira'', and the ''

Batuque Batuque may refer to: * Batuque (Brazil), various Afro-Brazilian practices, including music, dance, combat game and religion * Batuque (Cape Verde), a Cape Verdean music and dance genre * Batuque (manga), a Japanese manga series * Batuque (religio ...

'' dance. These are reflective of the diverse origins of Cape Verde's residents. The term "Criolo", or also "Kriolu" is used to refer to residents as well as the culture of Cape Verde.

References

Bibliography

* * {{authority control Ethnic groups in Cape Verde Multiracial affairs in Africa Mulatto