Colombians

Colombians (Colombianos) are people identified with the country of Colombia. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Colombians, several (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being Colombian. Colombia is a considered to be one of the most multiethnic societies in the World, home to people of various ethnic, religious and national origins. Though many Colombians have varying degrees of European, Indigenous, African, Arab and Asian ancestry. The majority of the Colombian population is made up of immigrants from the Old World and their descendants, mixed in part with the original populations, especially Iberians and to a lesser extent other Europeans. Following the initial period of Spanish conquest and immigration, different waves of immigration and settlement of non-indigenous peoples took place over the course of nearly six centuries and continue today. Elements of Native American and more recent immigrant customs, languages and religions have combined to form the culture of Colombia and thus a modern Colombian identity. Race and ethnicity in Colombia White Colombians The greatest part of Colombia's population descends from European immigration in the mid 16th to late 20th centuries. Approximately 70% of the Colombian population, or 40 million Colombians, can trace back their ancestry to the various European immigrant groups that arrived in Colombia primarily in the 19th and 20th centuries. In the 2018 DANE census, it was estimated that the exact number of European Colombians or white Colombians was actually 65% and not 70% of the population, but while the exact number is unknown, white Colombians are the primary racial and ethnic group in the country. The greatest waves of European immigration to Colombia can generally be divided into three time periods the 1820s-1850's, which brought hundreds of immigrants mainly from Spain, Italy, Germany (including Ashkenazi Jewish), the 1880s-to 1910s which brought many immigrants from France, Portugal, Belgium, Astro-Hungary, Denmark, Croatia, and Switzerland.