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Ethnic groups in South Asia

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The majority of the population fall within three large linguistic groups: Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, and Iranic. These groups are also further subdivided into numerous sub-groups, castes and tribes. Indo-Aryans form the predominant ethnolinguistic group in India (North India, East India, West India, and Central India), Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives. Dravidians form the predominant ethnolinguistic group in southern India, the northern and eastern regions of Sri Lanka and a small pocket of Pakistan. The Iranic peoples also have a significant presence in South Asia, the large majority of whom are located in Afghanistan and the northwestern and western parts of Pakistan.

Minority groups not falling within either large group mostly speak languages belonging to the Austroasiatic and Tibeto-Burman language families, and largely live around Ladakh and Northeast India, Nepal, Bhutan, and the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh. The Andamanese (Sentinel, Onge, Jarawa, and Great Andamanese) live in some of the Andaman Islands and speak a language isolate, as do the Kusunda in central Nepal, the Vedda in Sri Lanka, and the Nihali of Central India, who number about 5,000 people. The people of the Hunza Valley in Pakistan are another distinct population; they speak Burushaski, a language isolate.

The traditions of different ethnic groups in South Asia have diverged, influenced by external cultures, especially in the northwestern parts of South Asia and also in the border regions and busy ports, where there are greater levels of contact with external cultures. There is also a lot of genetic diversity within the region. For example, most of the ethnic groups of the northeastern parts of South Asia are genetically related to peoples of East or Southeast Asia. There are also genetically isolated groups who have not been genetically influenced by other groups, such as the Jarawa people of the Andaman Islands. The largest ethnolinguistic group in South Asia are the Indo-Aryans, numbering around 1 billion, and the largest subgroup are the native speakers of Hindi languages, numbering more than 470 million.

These groups are based solely on a linguistic basis and not on a genetic basis.

List of ethnic groups on the basis of language

Andamanese groups

Austroasiatic people

  • Khasi people
    • Pnar/Jaintia
  • Munda peoples
    • Asur people
    • Birhor people
    • Bhumij people
    • Bonda people
    • Ho people
    • Juang people
    • Kharia people
    • Korku people
    • Mahle people
    • Mundari people
    • Santali people
    • Sora people
  • Nicobarese people
  • Shompen people

Austronesian people

  • Sri Lankan Malays

Dravidian people

Indo-Aryan people

Iranic people

Nuristani people

Semitic people

Tai people

Tibeto-Burman people

Turkic people

Linguistic isolate groups

  • Hunza people
  • Kusunda
  • Nahali
  • Vedda

Afro-Asian groups

European and Eurasian people

East Asian people

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