Colombians

Colombians (Spanish: 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 considered to be one of the most multiethnic societies in the world, home to people of various ethnic, religious and national origins. Many Colombians have varying degrees of European, Indigenous, African, Arab, Asian and Jew ancestry.

The majority of the Colombian population is Mestizo and Castizo, being the mixed descendants of Indigenous peoples, Africans, and Europeans, especially Iberians. 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.

Ethnic groups

European Colombians

Most of Colombia's population descends from European immigration in the mid 16th to late 20th centuries. The greatest waves of European immigration to Colombia can generally be divided into three time periods: the 1820s-1850s, 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; and the 1920s-1960s, the last great wave of European immigration to Colombia, which brought many British (including Irish) immigrants, as well as other European groups such as the Dutch, Polish, Russian, Scandinavian, and other Eastern European immigrants who primarily settled in Colombia's great urban centers.