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Demographics
In three countries the Amerindians make up the largest segment of the population: in Guatemala and Bolivia they represent a majority of over 50%, and in Peru they constitute a plurality of just under 50%. In the rest of the Region, most people with a Native American lineage are admixed with one or more other ethnic lineages.
Since the sixteenth century a large number of Iberian colonists left for Latin America: the Portuguese to Brazil and the Spaniards to the rest of the region. Intensive mixing between the Europeans and the Amerindians occurred (mostly in, and after, the 1800s) and their descendants, known as mestizos, make up the majority of the population in half of the Latin American countries: Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, and Venezuela. There's genetic evidence that Puerto Rico may have a mestizo majority as well.
Starting in the late sixteenth century, a large number of African slaves were brought to Latin America, the majority of whom were sent to the Caribbean and Brazil. Nowadays, African descendants make up the majority of the population in most Caribbean countries. Mixing between Africans and Amerindians also occurred and their descendants are known as Zambos, found primarily in Venezuela and Colombia. Many of the African slaves in Latin America mixed with the Europeans, and their descendants, known as Mulattoes, make up the majority of the population in some countries such as the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Cuba, and a large proportion of the populations of Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, and Belize. Many Latin American countries also have a substantial "tri-ethnic" population, their ancestry being a mix of European, Amerindian, and African, most notably in Dominican Republic, Colombia, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, and Brazil.
Millions of European immigrants arrived in Latin America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with most of them settling in Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, and Venezuela. The top five groups of European immigrants were Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese, Germans and Irish. The descendants of these immigrants and the descendants of Spanish and Portuguese colonial settlers together compose some 90% of the current white population. Some of the other groups are Poles, Lithuanians, Russians, Welsh, Ukrainians, French, Croatians and European Jews. More than two thirds of Latin America's entire white population resides in a continuous area of South America that consists of Argentina, Uruguay, and southern Brazil. (See Immigration to Brazil and Immigration to Argentina.)
In this same period, many immigrants came from the Middle-East and Asia, including Indians, Lebanese, Syrians, and, more recently, Koreans, Chinese, and Japanese (mainly to Brazil). In the late nineteenth century, a small wave of Americans, mostly from the former Confederate States of the Southern U.S., settled in Brazil, and fewer across Latin America.
Racial origins
These figures include 19 of the 20 Latin American nations. Venezuela is not included as it does not include race on its census.
Total Population 522.8 million.[4] Racial groups: 174 million White (33.3% of the total population), 133.8 million Mestizo (25.6%), 90.3 million Mulatto (17.3%), 60.8 million Amerindian or Native Peoples (11.6%), 31.5 million White/Mestizo (6%; a few countries count Whites and Mestizos together), 24.8 million Black (4.7%), 1.4 million Asian (0.3%; the correct figure may be at least 4.4 million, or .8%), 6.2 million Other and Unknown (1.2%). (Note: Venezuela's population is 26,749,000. Applying to this the country's 1998 ratios [mestizo 67%, white 21%, black 10%, Amerindian 2%[5]] yields, for the entire region: Population 549,549,000; White 32.7%, Mestizo 27.6%, Mulatto 16.4%, Amerindian or Native Peoples 11.2%, White/Mestizo 5.7%, Black 5%, Asian 0.3%, Other and Unknown 1.1%). As these numbers show, although almost every Latin American country has a majority population, that is not the case for the region as a whole. They also show that more than 80% of Latin America's population ranges from those with a significant amount of European admixture to those of fully European origin.[4]
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