The Indigenous peoples of the Americas are groups of people native to a specific region that inhabited the Americasbefore the arrival of European settlers in the 15th century and the ethnic groups who continue to identify themselves with those peoples.[34]
The Indigenous peoples of the Americas are diverse; some Indigenous peoples were historically hunter-gatherers, while others traditionally practice agriculture and aquaculture. In some regions, Indigenous peoples created pre-contact monumental architecture, large-scale organized cities, city-states, chiefdoms, states, kingdoms, republics, confederacies and empires.[35] These societies had varying degrees of knowledge of engineering, architecture, mathematics, astronomy, writing, physics, medicine, planting and irrigation, geology, mining, metallurgy, sculpture and gold smithing.
Many parts of the Americas are still populated by Indigenous peoples; some countries have sizeable populations, especially Bolivia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru and the United States. At least a thousand different Indigenous languages are spoken in the Americas, where there are also 574 federally recognized tribes in the United States alone. Several of these languages are recognized as official by several governments such as those in Bolivia, Peru, Paraguay and Greenland. Some, such as Quechua, Arawak, Aymara, Guaraní, Mayan and Nahuatl, count their speakers in the millions. Whether contemporary Indigenous people live in rural communities or urban ones, many also maintain additional aspects of their cultural practices to varying degrees, including religion, social organization and subsistence practices. Like most cultures, over time, cultures specific to many Indigenous peoples have also evolved, preserving traditional customs but also adjusting to meet modern needs. Some Indigenous peoples still live in relative isolation from Western culture and a few are still counted as uncontacted peoples.[36] Indigenous peoples from the Americas have also formed diaspora communities outside the Western Hemisphere, namely in former colonial centers in Europe. A notable example is the sizable Greenlandic Inuit community in Denmark.[37] In the 20th and 21st centuries, Indigenous peoples from Suriname and French Guiana migrated to the Netherlands and France, respectively.[38][39]
^"Censo de Población y Vivienda 2020: Presentación de resultados"(PDF) (in Spanish). Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía. p. 49. Archived(PDF) from the original on 24 January 2022. Retrieved 29 January 2022. Note: Indigenous population was identified as the total population in households where the head of the household, his or her spouse or any of their ascendants claimed to speak an Indigenous language.
^"2020: DEC Redistricting Data (PL 94-171)". United States Census Bureau. The American Indian and Alaska Native population of one race was 3.7 million and the two or more races population 5.9 million (excluding Puerto Rico).
^"Principales Resultados del Censo 2018"(PDF) (in Spanish). Instituto Nacional de Estadística. p. 10. Archived(PDF) from the original on 29 April 2021. Retrieved 29 April 2021. Sum of people who identify as Maya (6,207,503) and Xinka (264,167).
^"Perú: Perfil Sociodemográfico"(PDF) (in Spanish). Instituto Nacional de Estadística e Informática. p. 214. Archived(PDF) from the original on 11 February 2020. Retrieved 30 April 2021. Sum of people who identify as Quechua (5,176,809), Aimara (548,292), Native or Indigenous from the Amazon (79,266), Ashaninka (55,489), Part of another Indigenous or originary peoples (49,838), Awajun (37,690) and Shipibo Konibo (25,222).
^"Síntesis de Resultados Censo 2017"(PDF) (in Spanish). Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas. p. 16. Archived(PDF) from the original on 13 July 2018. Retrieved 30 April 2021. Excluding Rapa Nui (9,399).
^"Población Indígena de Colombia"(PDF) (in Spanish). Departamento Administrativo Nacional de Estadística. Archived(PDF) from the original on 18 September 2020. Retrieved 1 May 2021.
^"Greenland in Figures 2020"(PDF). Statistics Greenland. p. 37. Archived(PDF) from the original on 3 May 2021. Retrieved 3 May 2021. Corresponding to "Born in Greenland".
^"2010 Housing and Population Census". The Central Statistical Office of Saint Lucia. Archived from the original on 29 March 2023. Retrieved 12 October 2023. To generate the report follow Population and Housing > Basic Characteristics > Person Variables, select Ethnic group and execute.