The 10 Most Ethnically Diverse Countries in the World

Ethnicity, like race, is a social construct, but it's still a construct with significant implications for the world. How people perceive ethnicity, both their own and that of others, can be tough to measure, particularly given that it's so subjective. So, where the most ethnically diverse countries in the world are located?

The World Values Survey asked respondents in more than 80 different countries to state the type of people they did not want as neighbors. Over 40 per cent of respondents in India, Jordan, Bangladesh and Hong Kong said they would not want a neighbor of a different race. The British were among the most tolerant, along with former colonies the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. People in Latin American counties were also prepared to embrace racially diverse neighbors. The usual suspects lead the list of culturally diverse countries: Chad, Cameroon, Nigeria, Togo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. These and other African countries typically rank high on any diversity index because of their multitude of tribal groups and languages. The only western country to break into the top 20 most diverse is Canada. The United States ranks near the middle, slightly more diverse than Russia but slightly less diverse than Spain.

Argentina, the Comoros, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Rwanda and Uruguay rank as the world’s least diverse countries. Argentina may be a surprise, what with all those Germans and Italians pouring into the country after one world war or the other. However, ethnic diversity can simply mean trouble sometimes, as we have seen in our previous post regarding the 10 most racist countries in the world.