People of African descent
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| c. 140 million | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
 Brazil
|
55,900,000, including multiracial people |
 United States
|
46,350,467 |
 Haiti
|
8,788,439 |
 Colombia
|
4,944,400 |
 France
|
3,800,000 |
 Venezuela
|
3,156,817 |
 Jamaica
|
2,731,419 |
 United Kingdom
|
2,497,373 |
 Dominican Republic
|
1,985,991 |
 Mexico
|
1,386,556 |
 Cuba
|
1,126,894 |
 Italy
|
1,100,000 |
 Puerto Rico
|
979,842 |
 Peru
|
875,427 |
 Germany
|
817,150 |
 Canada
|
783,795 |
 Spain
|
690,291 |
 Ecuador
|
680,000 |
 Trinidad and Tobago
|
452,536 |
 Barbados
|
256,706 |
 Guyana
|
225,860 |
 Suriname
|
200,406 |
 Argentina
|
149,493 |
 Grenada
|
101,309 |
| Languages | |
| Lingua franca: American English, Caribbean English, French, Spanish, Portuguese | |
| Religion | |
| Christianity, Islam, Traditional African religions, Afro-American religions | |
The African diaspora refers to the communities throughout the world that have resulted by descent from the movement in historic times of peoples from Africa, predominantly to the Americas and among other areas around the globe. The term has been historically applied in particular to the descendants of the West and Central Africans who were enslaved and shipped to the Americas via the Atlantic slave trade between the 16th and 19th centuries, with their largest populations in Brazil, the United States, and Haiti. Some scholars identify "four circulatory phases" of migration out of Africa.
The phrase African diaspora was coined during the 1990s, and gradually entered common usage at the turn of the 21st century. The term diaspora' originates from the Greek διασπορά (diaspora, literally "scattering") which gained popularity in English in reference to the Jewish diaspora before being more broadly applied to other populations.
Less commonly, the term has been used in scholarship to refer to recent emigration from Africa. The African Union (AU) defines the African diaspora as consisting: "of people of African origin living outside the continent, irrespective of their citizenship and nationality and who are willing to contribute to the development of the continent and the building of the African Union." Its constitutive act declares that it shall "invite and encourage the full participation of the African diaspora as an important part of our continent, in the building of the African Union." For this prehistoric and recent migration from Africa, see recent African origin of modern humans and emigration from Africa.
Much of the African diaspora was dispersed throughout the Americas, Europe, and Asia during the Atlantic and Arab slave trades. Beginning in the 8th century, Arabs took African slaves from the central and eastern portions of the continent (where they were known as the Zanj) and sold them into markets in the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent, and the Far East. Beginning in the 15th century, Europeans captured or bought African slaves from West Africa and brought them to the Americas and Europe. The Atlantic Slave Trade ended in the 19th century, and the Arab Slave Trade ended in the middle of the 20th century. The dispersal through slave trading represents the largest forced migrations in human history. The economic effect on the African continent was devastating, as generations of young people were taken from their communities and societies were disrupted. Some communities created by descendants of African slaves in the Americas, Europe, and Asia have survived to the modern day. In other cases, blacks intermarried with non-blacks, and their descendants are blended into the local population.
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