Bugis people

Buginese People
To Ugi
ᨈᨚ ᨕᨘᨁᨗ

Bugis couple in traditional costume during their wedding.
Total population
7 million (2010 census)
Regions with significant populations
Indonesia	6,359,700
South Sulawesi	3,618,683
East Kalimantan	735,819
Southeast Sulawesi	496,432
Central Sulawesi	409,741
West Sulawesi	144,554
West Kalimantan	137,282
Riau	107,159
South Kalimantan	101,727
Jambi	96,145
Papua	88,991
Jakarta	68,227
West Papua	40,087
Malaysia	2,999,972
Singapore	97,000
Netherlands	99,000
Languages
Buginese, Indonesian, Malay
Religion
Sunni Islam (predominantly) (98.99%), Protestant (0.46%), Hindu (0.41%), Catholic (0.09%), Animism (0.04%), Buddhism (0.01%)
Related ethnic groups
Makassar people, Mandarese people, Toraja
a An estimated 3,500,000 claim Buginese descent.

The Buginese people are an ethnic group - the most numerous of the three major linguistic and ethnic groups of South Sulawesi, in the southwestern province of Sulawesi, third largest island of Indonesia. The Austronesian ancestors of the Buginese people settled on Sulawesi around 2500 B.C.E. There is "historical linguistic evidence of some late Holocene immigration of Austronesian speakers to South Sulawesi from Taiwan" - which means that the Buginese have "possible ultimate ancestry in South China", and that as a result of this immigration, "there was an infusion of an exogenous population from China or Taiwan." Migration from South China by some of the paternal ancestors of the Buginese is also supported by studies of Human Y-chromosome DNA haplogroups. The Bugis in 1605 converted to Islam from Animism. Some Buginese have retained their pre-Islamic belief called Tolotang, and some Bugis converted to Christianity by means of marriage; but they have remained a minority.

Despite the population numbering only around 6 million, the Buginese are very powerful people and they have heavily influenced the politics in the present day states of Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore. The current Prime Minister of Malaysia, Najib Razak and the current Vice President of Indonesia, Jusuf Kalla are both Buginese.

Although many Buginese people live in the large port cities of Makassar and Parepare, the majority are farmers who grow wet rice on the lowland plains to the north and west of the town of Maros. The name Bugis is an exonym which represents an older form of the name; (To) Ugi is the endonym.