kids encyclopedia robot

Germans facts for kids

Kids Encyclopedia Facts
Quick facts for kids
Germans
Deutsche
Total population
c. 100–150 worldwide
Regions with significant populations
 Germany 62,482,000
 United States 46,047,114 (descent)
 Brazil 12,000,000 (descent)
 Argentina 3,541,600 (descent)
 Canada 3,322,405 (descent)
 Chile 500,000 (descent)
 France 437,000
 Russia 394,138
 Netherlands 368,512
 Italy 310,900
 Austria 204,000
 Kazakhstan 181,958
 Hungary 178,837
 Poland 148,000
 Spain 167.771
 Sweden 50,863
 Mexico 15,000–40,000
 Uruguay 40,000
 Romania 36,000
 Ukraine 33,302
 Norway 27,593
 Dominican Republic 25,000
 Czech Republic 21,216
 Portugal 10,030 (2016)
Languages
German
Religion
Historically:
2/3rds Protestant
1/3rd Roman Catholic
Nowadays:
1/3rd Protestant
1/3rd Roman Catholic
1/3rd Irreligious
Related ethnic groups
other Germanic peoples

Germans (German: Deutsche) are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe, who share a common German ancestry, culture and history. German is the shared mother tongue of a substantial majority of ethnic Germans.

The English term Germans has historically referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages. Ever since the outbreak of the Protestant Reformation within the Holy Roman Empire, German society has been characterized by a Catholic-Protestant divide.

Of approximately 100 million native speakers of German in the world, roughly 80 million consider themselves Germans. There are an additional 80 million people of German ancestry mainly in the United States, Brazil (mainly in the South Region of the country), Argentina, Canada, South Africa, the post-Soviet states (mainly in Russia and Kazakhstan), and France, each accounting for at least 1 million. Thus, the total number of Germans lies somewhere between 100 and more than 150 million, depending on the criteria applied (native speakers, single-ancestry ethnic Germans, partial German ancestry, etc.).

Today, people from countries with German-speaking majorities which were earlier part of the Holy Roman Empire, (such as Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and other historically-tied countries like Luxembourg), most often subscribe to their own national identities and may or may not also self-identify as ethnically German.

Images for kids

See also

Kids robot.svg In Spanish: Pueblo alemán para niños

kids search engine
Germans Facts for Kids. Kiddle Encyclopedia.