An ethnic majority describes the numerical dominance of individuals of an ethnic group within the total population of a particular political or geographical entity. Ethnicity refers to genealogy, language, culture, identification with a historical social group and behavioral practices inherited from ancestors, among others, such as diet, art and religion.
An ethnic majority generally contrasts with ethnic minorities within a certain population, such as indigenous people, diasporas or immigrant ethnicities. The concept of the territorial national state is derived from the idea to unite and integrate ethnicities into independent nations. However, monoethnic countries are virtually non-existent. Modern people increasingly have multiple genealogical and ethnic roots. As a consequence, they often only loosely identify with distinct ethnic groups. Identification takes place within various multi-ethnic, societal and cultural categories .
