# Most ethnically diverse country in Europe?



## DiggerD21 (Apr 22, 2004)

I would say in terms of number and recognizable size of diverse ethnic communities: UK followed by the Netherlands and France, because of the immigrants of their colonial empires they had (and the UK most recently).


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## dennol (Sep 11, 2002)

1. Holland is not a country. Usually I don't care if people say/write Holland instead of The Netherlands, only when someone from Holland does. It's not that much work to write down The Netherlands in a poll option or just use NL, that one's shorter too. That would be nice to those +10 million Dutch that are not living in Holland. Hollanders are actually an ethnic minority in this country. 


2. Counting Flemish, Alsacians, Basques etc. as ethnic groups in France is stupid IMO. Well, maybe it's not stupid, but in that case we should also count Scots and Welshmen in the UK, Frisians (and other groups in NL), Bavarians in Germany and the debate would go on forever...


3. I agree with Jonesy that you have to define 'ethnically diverse' first before you can even answer the question.


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## Butcher (Dec 13, 2004)

UK by Far


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## Das Tier (Sep 19, 2002)

Butcher said:


> UK by Far


I wouldn`t agree to that: Official data says about 8% foreigners, now it would be interesting to have some data about the total amount of inhabitants with a migration background(because of naturalization, etc.). Perhaps some of our british members can help us with that.


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## Das Tier (Sep 19, 2002)

@ all

It`s ridiculous and useless only to name countries. Please present stats, when you choose a country.


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## Das Tier (Sep 19, 2002)

What`s about Spain or Italy? Has anybody stats?


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## Englishman (May 3, 2003)

My stat of the day is 47 % of all babies born in greater London are born to foreign born mothers. 

I guess UK has possibly the most diverse mix of immigrants - not necessarily the greatest number though. I would suspect The Netherlands or Germany have a higher percentage.


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## DrJekyll (Sep 23, 2004)

according to the latest statistics, Spain has 8,5% of immigrants, mainly from Morocco, Ecuador and Romania. 

We must add around 4% of Spanish gipsies, and 5% of Basques if it s considered a different ethnia


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## Das Tier (Sep 19, 2002)

Englishman said:


> My stat of the day is 47 % of all babies born in greater London are born to foreign born mothers.


That doesn`t have to say much about the present. We have many schools, especially elemantary schools, in Berlin, which have over 70% foreigners. A few months ago the first school was 100% non-german with exception of the teachers. I will take a look for Berlins Babystats later. Perhaps you can make a list for the UK, like mine for Germany(see Page 1). 



Englishman said:


> I guess UK has possibly the most diverse mix of immigrants...


At this point I´m going with you. Germanys immigrants are mainly from Europe with the exceptions: Turkey, Russia and Arabia.


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## cello1974 (May 20, 2003)

In 2004, there were more 'foreign' babies born in Hamburg's hospitals than German babies...


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## rocky (Apr 20, 2005)

heres my modifications ot the above post

- 4,2 millions of Brittanian (Celtic ethny) -> more. many more. Paris alone had 2ml britons in 1890. So many people have briton ancestry in Paris metro , almost all the white you see. From kool shen to dieudone MBALAMBALA from Francois pinau :runaway: 
same in le havre bordeaux , ect. id say at least 7ml



Foreign ethny :
- 6 millions of Portuguese people (first foreign community) -> Even my half portuguese friend who is very proud says 2m to 2.5

- 200,000 Spaniard -> way more like 1 m or more?
- 200,000 English people
- 10 millions of people from muslims countries (over 25 countries). ->muslims , the only numbers we got say 10%. i dont know if they are reliable, that would make 6ml

blacks(conting the muslims), a few millions. Asians 1.

muslims are over estimated.

thats my personnal views.


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## Das Tier (Sep 19, 2002)

cello1974 said:


> In 2004, there were more 'foreign' babies born in Hamburg's hospitals than German babies...


Where did you read this? Any sources?


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## Tubeman (Sep 12, 2002)

In raw numbers I suspect France or UK

Per capita I suspect Netherlands or Switzerland

I think the UK can claim the most diversity, i.e. the biggest number of different groups with a big enough population to be a "community" even if France does beat us regarding raw numbers of immigrants.


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## Winus (Sep 11, 2002)

*The Netherlands 2004*
Total population 16 258 032
Foreign* 3 088 152 --> 19%
(Foreign 1st generation* 1 602 730 --> 10%)

From:
EU 748 417
Non-western countries 1 668 297
Western countries 1 419 855

Europe 1 303 662
Africa 501 687
America 564 056
Asia	699 469
Oceania 19 278

*Foreign = 1st & 2nd generation (First generation: persons born abroad with at least one parent born abroad. Second generation: persons born in the Netherlands with at least one parent born abroad.)

Source CBS


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## eklips (Mar 29, 2005)

rocky said:


> heres my modifications ot the above post
> 
> - 4,2 millions of Brittanian (Celtic ethny) -> more. many more. Paris alone had 2ml britons in 1890. So many people have briton ancestry in Paris metro , almost all the white you see. From kool shen to dieudone MBALAMBALA from Francois pinau :runaway:
> same in le havre bordeaux , ect. id say at least 7ml
> ...



I'd rather say that north africans are over estimated, while blacks are underestimated, don't forget a lot of blacks are muslims, and I see far more blacks where I live then north africans


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## EleGance (May 5, 2005)

switzerland


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## Roland (Jan 14, 2005)

Coming from Rotterdam (city with >200 nationalities) I tended to choose The Netherlands. However, large parts of the lowlands are pretty 'white' so I will not vote and let the statistics speak for themselves.



dennol said:


> Holland is not a country. Usually I don't care if people say/write Holland instead of The Netherlands, only when someone from Holland does.


Holland is a country that colonized the rest of the lowlands and some more. Just accept it, you servant of the Great Empire of Holland! 



dennol said:


> It's not that much work to write down The Netherlands in a poll option or just use NL, that one's shorter too. That would be nice to those +10 million Dutch that are not living in Holland.


Stop blaming us alone! Ever been to southern Limburg? I lived there and they even call people from northern Limburg "Hollanders", just to underline how different they are. :bash:



dennol said:


> Hollanders are actually an ethnic minority in this country.


6 million out of 16 million a minority?


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## Tubeman (Sep 12, 2002)

UK... (58.7 million 2001)

8.3% or 4.9 million overseas born (2001) Stats

Ethnicity data:

7.9% or 4.64 million minority ethnic overall

4.0% or 2.3 million "Asian" (mostly South Asian; Indian Subcontinent)

of which:

1.8% or 1.1 million were Indian
1.3% or 0.75 million were Pakistani
0.5% or 0.28 million were Bangladeshi
0.4% or 0.25 million were "other Asian" (excludes "Chinese" so mostly Sri Lankan, Vietnamese etc)

2% or 1.15 million Black or Black British

of which:

1% or 0.57 million Black Caribbean
0.8% or 0.49 million Black African (has since grown a lot)
0.2% or 97,500 "Black Other"

0.4% or 0.25 million Chinese

"Other" = 0.4% or 0.23 million

"Mixed" = 1.2% or 0.68 million

Stats

The 2001 census categories were poor and ignored significant ethnic groups in the UK such as Arab, Turkish, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, North African, Sri Lankan, Somali, Kosovan, Bosnian, Gypsy and also ignored the fact that a large % of Asians came via East Africa (Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania etc).

Since 2001 the Black African and Eastern European populations have burgeoned, other groups have remained pretty stable. Black Africans (Nigerians, Ghanaian, Congolese, Liberian etc) have undoubtedly outstripped Black Caribbeans by now.

------------------------------------------------

As you can see, the above data focuses on "visible" minorities, if we start going down the road of considering "non-visible" minorities like Irish (the biggest ethnic minority in the UK), Jews (mostly 20th century migrants from Russia, Germany etc), Italians (large influx in the 20th century) and so forth you find a much larger ethnic % (15-20%?).

Nearly 10%, or 5 million people in the UK have at least an Irish Parent or Grandparent.


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## Alfred (Aug 1, 2004)

sweden has 26% immigrates.


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## cello1974 (May 20, 2003)

Das Tier said:


> Where did you read this? Any sources?


Statistisches Bundesamt and Standesamt in Hamburg could be sources. This was mentioned on the radio 1 live, when I was in Germany last year. This was one of these this was ... reviews! :cheers:


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## Menino de Sampa (Sep 21, 2003)

traditional population - Russia

population including inmigrants and their sons - UK or France.


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## ranny fash (Apr 24, 2005)

this is probably a useless post.

but i feel strongly abt this subject. 
in the uk ethnic minorities are concentrated almost exclusively in the larger cities, like nottingham, where i live. i dont see the countryside much, but whenever i do it always feels a bit strange being somewhere where everyone is white. 

yep that was pretty useless.


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## Tubeman (Sep 12, 2002)

ranny fash said:


> this is probably a useless post.
> 
> but i feel strongly abt this subject.
> in the uk ethnic minorities are concentrated almost exclusively in the larger cities, like nottingham, where i live. i dont see the countryside much, but whenever i do it always feels a bit strange being somewhere where everyone is white.
> ...


Useless factoid:

2% Of people in Nottingham are Mixed Black Caribbean / White.

Maybe Nottingham will become like Cuba in 100 years where almost everyone is Mixed Race?

Fastest growing Ethnic Group in the UK; Mixed Race. It shows how easily other races integrate into UK society if nothing else (especially Black Caribbean, more children are being born with one Black Caribbean parent than two in the UK).


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## DrJekyll (Sep 23, 2004)

bendito mestizaje!


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## Küsel (Sep 16, 2004)

Switzerland: 
4 official languages
3 historical parts of Europe (Alemanic, Bourgogne, Lombardia)
22% foreigner population (Geneva: 45%)
155 nations

but the UK, Holland and France have a much higher African/Asian foreign pop.


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## rocky (Apr 20, 2005)

Tubeman said:


> UK... (58.7 million 2001)
> 
> 8.3% or 4.9 million overseas born (2001) Stats
> 
> ...


with that in mind im pretty sure france has more than 10-15millions , counting all the minorities 

algerians,moroccans,tunisians,turkish,jews,italians,spanishs,portuguese,polish,black from the french caribeans, mixed pple from la reunion,tzigans,chinese,viets, and various african pple. 


but theires no number for france


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## Tubeman (Sep 12, 2002)

rocky said:


> with that in mind im pretty sure france has more than 10-15millions , counting all the minorities
> 
> algerians,moroccans,tunisians,turkish,jews,italians,spanishs,portuguese,polish,black from the french caribeans, mixed pple from la reunion,tzigans,chinese,viets, and various african pple.
> 
> ...


Yes as I said France or UK definitely is the most diverse in terms of raw numbers, and I suspect that France probably has the most out of the two. I've heard some pretty daft assertions about the size of France's ethnic population (e.g. France = 20% Muslim) in the absence of any data, but I think your "top end" of 15 million is a bit too high (=25%).

I think that considering all minorities inc. Portuguese in France and Irish in the UK both countries would be in the region of 15% ethnic minority... I wouldn't count, for instance, an Englishman with one Irish parent but who has never been to Ireland "ethnic Irish" even if they say otherwise.


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## eklips (Mar 29, 2005)

Well, even though it's a bit stupid to say this because there is no such thing as a comon ethnicity for all "white" french people, portugeses are a bit further from "white" french people, then the irish are to the british "whites" since most Portugeses look meditaranean.

Do you see what I mean?


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## Tubeman (Sep 12, 2002)

virtual said:


> Well, even though it's a bit stupid to say this because there is no such thing as a comon ethnicity for all "white" french people, portugeses are a bit further from "white" french people, then the irish are to the british "whites" since most Portugeses look meditaranean.
> 
> Do you see what I mean?


That's to the untrained eye perhaps... You can probably spot a French person with Portuguese ancestry and I can spot a British person with Irish ancestry but not vice versa. French people to me are stereotypically closer to Southern than Northern European in appearence, so I'd just assume an ethnic Portuguese speaking French to be French, just as you'd assume an ethnic Irish with an English accent to be English.


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## ranny fash (Apr 24, 2005)

Tubeman said:


> Useless factoid:
> 
> 2% Of people in Nottingham are Mixed Black Caribbean / White.
> 
> ...


i fuckin hope it happens sooner than that man. mixed race girls are well fit (mostly).


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## DnH (Aug 3, 2003)

per capita i wouldnt be surprised if Sweden was ahead of all these when it comes to immigrants.. 

per 100.000 that is... otherwise, im the biggest country of these has the most nationalities. France or England probably.

Sweden is 10 % foreign born i believe.. and even more with immigrant background..


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## Küsel (Sep 16, 2004)

Even if we have much more with 21%, I think the most foreigners in Europe has Luxemburg - I heard it's something about 40%. As I said Canton of Geneva with 45% on nearly half a million people is also not bad


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## Monkey (Oct 1, 2002)

I Think France


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## titeness (Jul 3, 2004)

The only way to judge this is too ask how deeply are minorities embeeded in the overall processes of the nation? Are there Minority government officials? If so how much as a percentage? How popular is ethnic(S) music vs the domestic music? How pervasive is ehtnic fashion, ethnic schoolteachers, etc..

In this regard U.K leads by far.


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## Tubeman (Sep 12, 2002)

titeness said:


> The only way to judge this is too ask how deeply are minorities embeeded in the overall processes of the nation? Are there Minority government officials? If so how much as a percentage? How popular is ethnic(S) music vs the domestic music? How pervasive is ehtnic fashion, ethnic schoolteachers, etc..
> 
> In this regard U.K leads by far.


I think that immigrants' cultures have shaped British identity enormously.

Most immigrants traditionally came from the Commonwealth and the original migrants of the 1940's-1970's had a strong British identity even before arriving here, this I think helped them integrate (e.g. a love of Cricket, respect for Royalty etc). Their children and grandchildren posed more challenges (e.g. the widespread Race Riots of the 1980's) but I think we have come out the other side of these dark days to become a truly multicultural, multi-race, multi-faith society. 

The only failings now are the isolation of some Asian Muslim communities (e.g. Bengali in east London and Pakistani in Bradford, Burnley, Oldham etc) which are in my opinion self-imposed. I think that once communities shut themselves off and occupy whole swathes of towns with little interaction with the outside world, then "Multiculturalism" has failed miserably and you get Ghettoisation, which is never a good thing.


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## carfentanyl (May 14, 2003)

UK, France or the Netherlands.

Which is logical, considering they had the most colonies. German and Spanish cities look very white to me in general, eventhough Spain had a lot of colonies too. I just visited Barcelona and was wondering where they hid the foreigners. Barcelona is very cool, but very non-multicultural. 

From FBI's world factbook:

*Netherlands:*
Dutch 83%, other 17% (of which 9% are non-Western origin mainly Turks, Moroccans, Antilleans, Surinamese and Indonesians) (1999 est.) 

*Germany*
German 91.5%, Turkish 2.4%, other 6.1% (made up largely of Greek, Italian, Polish, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Spanish) 

*UK:*
English 81.5%, Scottish 9.6%, Irish 2.4%, Welsh 1.9%, Ulster 1.8%, West Indian, Indian, Pakistani, and other 2.8% 

I feel that the UK stats are off, considering Scottish, Irish, Ulster and Welsh should be calculated with the English. I also don't know if the stats are right.


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## carfentanyl (May 14, 2003)

Kuesel said:


> Even if we have much more with 21%, I think the most foreigners in Europe has Luxemburg - I heard it's something about 40%. As I said Canton of Geneva with 45% on nearly half a million people is also not bad


Rotterdam, Amsterdam and The Hague all have close to 50%. And besides, most foreigners in Luxembourg are either French, Belgian or German. Not a lot of non-western foreigners.


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## ranny fash (Apr 24, 2005)

carfentanyl said:


> UK, France or the Netherlands.
> 
> Which is logical, considering they had the most colonies. German and Spanish cities look very white to me in general, eventhough Spain had a lot of colonies too. I just visited Barcelona and was wondering where they hid the foreigners. Barcelona is very cool, but very non-multicultural.
> 
> ...


yeah i think those uk stats are a bit wrong, especially considering that they suggest non-white people make up only 2.8% of the population! i believe its more like 10%, but i dont have stats. also, its a bit strange separating english, scottish, welsh and irish into separate groups because weve been happily interbreeding for centuries, meaning there is little or no difference in ethnicity between us.


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## Tubeman (Sep 12, 2002)

carfentanyl said:


> *UK:*
> English 81.5%, Scottish 9.6%, Irish 2.4%, Welsh 1.9%, Ulster 1.8%, West Indian, Indian, Pakistani, and other 2.8%
> 
> I feel that the UK stats are off, considering Scottish, Irish, Ulster and Welsh should be calculated with the English. I also don't know if the stats are right.


Yeah those figures are bollocks... refer back to the 2001 census data I posted further up the page...

7.9% / 4.64 million Ethnic Minority 2001, and that excludes all European minorities, the Irish, and all of the "native" minorities like Welsh and Scottish.

If you go down the road of considering everyone except ethnic White English a minority then the UK is at the very least 20% ethnic minority (I'd suspect more in the region of 25% in 2005). I think this is a bit daft though, as firstly Welsh and Scottish are by definition part of the UK, so its like considering Californians a minority in the USA and secondly there's been so much mixing between English / Scottish / Welsh / Irish that they aren't distinct races (even though they have distinct culture / language etc).


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## liat91 (Apr 11, 2005)

I see alot of emphasis on breaking down specific sub-european groups. My question basically stems from how we classify groups in the U.S., be it accurate and fair or not. What is the racial breakdown of Europe and the individual European nations?. Example: Caucasian/white/european origin, black/sub-saharan african origin, Middle-easterner(North Africa and Western Asia), South and Eastern asian, and hispanic(Latin americans), and lastly mixed raced heritage. There possibly could be no census done in europe by this fashion, but just curious if anyone has stats. Thanx


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