Monoethnicity is the existence of a single

ethnic group An ethnicity or ethnic group is a group of people with shared attributes, which they collectively believe to have, and long-term endogamy. Ethnicities share attributes like language, culture, common sets of ancestry, traditions, society, re ...

in a given region or country. It is the opposite of polyethnicity. An example of a largely monoethnic country is Japan. It is a common belief in

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

that the entire country is monoethnic, but a few ethnic minorities live in Japan (e.g.

Koreans Koreans are an East Asian ethnic group native to the Korean Peninsula. The majority of Koreans live in the two Korean sovereign states of North and South Korea, which are collectively referred to as Korea. As of 2021, an estimated 7.3 m ...

, Ainus, and

Ryukyuans The are a Japonic-speaking East Asian ethnic group indigenous to the Ryukyu Islands, which stretch from the island of Kyushu to the island of Taiwan. With Japan, most Ryukyuans live in the Okinawa Prefecture or Kagoshima Prefecture. They sp ...

). They represent around 2.3% of the whole population.

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...

is another monoethnic country. There are small ethnic minorities that exist in South Korea, where they account for around 5.2% of the South Korean population. These include around 900,000 Chinese immigrants. Most African countries have what would be considered a mono-

racial Race is a categorization of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into groups generally viewed as distinct within a given society. The term came into common usage during the 16th century, when it was used to refer to groups of va ...

society, but it is common to find dozens of ethnic groups within the same country. The

Yugoslav Wars The Yugoslav Wars were a series of separate but related#Naimark, Naimark (2003), p. xvii. ethnic conflicts, wars of independence, and Insurgency, insurgencies that took place from 1991 to 2001 in what had been the Socialist Federal Republic of ...

are noted as having made Yugoslavia's successor states "de facto and

de jure In law and government, ''de jure'' (; ; ) describes practices that are officially recognized by laws or other formal norms, regardless of whether the practice exists in reality. The phrase is often used in contrast with '' de facto'' ('from fa ...

monoethnic nation-states", with

Bosnia and Herzegovina Bosnia and Herzegovina, sometimes known as Bosnia-Herzegovina and informally as Bosnia, is a country in Southeast Europe. Situated on the Balkans, Balkan Peninsula, it borders Serbia to the east, Montenegro to the southeast, and Croatia to th ...

further diving itself into mono-ethnic enclaves. Because not all countries collect data on ethnicity, and the collection of data usually relies on self-reporting, it can be difficult to discern how monoethnic a country is.

Monoethnic countries with more than 85% homogenity

Unrecognized states and dependent territories

See also

References