Majority minority
term used to refer to a subdivision

A majority-minority or minority-majority area is a term used to refer to a subdivision in which one or more racial, ethnic, and/or religious minorities (relative to the whole country's population) make up a majority of the local population.
Terminology
The exact terminology used differs from place to place and language to language. In many large, contiguous countries like China or the United Kingdom, a minority population (for the whole state) is often the majority in a subdivision. For example, Tibetan people are the majority in the Tibet Autonomous Region and Scottish people are the majority in Scotland. The demographics in these regions are generally the result of historical population distributions, not because of recent immigration or recent differences in birth and fertility rates between various groups. As a result, it is rare for a Chinese autonomous region or a British home nation to be described as 'majority minority', even though they would fit the definition.
Background
Majority minority areas exist in two main forms. One form is when a homogeneous grouping residing within an area make up a majority of the local population. This grouping would otherwise be a minority in the broader jurisdiction. The other type occurs when several disparate groupings, when counted together, form a percentage-share majority of the local population, outnumbering the historically dominant group as a composite of diverse minority groups.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Majority minority” is term used to refer to a subdivision. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Majority, minority and term, not as a finished interpretation.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q105102828. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Majority minority” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.