They are the largest minority in China, seventeen million strong, yet the world barely knows their name. This is the story of the Zhuang: a Tai people of the karst country, masters of rice and song.

Across the forested plateaus and hills of central India, in the land they gave their name to, Gondwana, live the Gonds, the largest tribal community of India. An Adivasi people

The story of the Russians, the largest people of Russia and one of the great nations of the world: an East Slavic people of the east European plain, heirs to Kievan Rus and Orthodox Christianity, builders of the largest state on earth, and creators of a world-famous tradition of literature, music, and art.

From the deserts of Rajasthan and the plains of Gujarat to the high pastures of the western Himalaya, live the Gujjars, one of the great pastoral communities of the subcontinent.

The Gurage are a Semitic-speaking people of central-southern Ethiopia, living in the fertile highlands southwest of Addis Ababa in the region known as the Gurage Zone. Numbering some two million

The Gusii, who call themselves the Abagusii and are widely known as the Kisii, are a Bantu-speaking people of the highlands of southwestern Kenya, concentrated in the counties of Kisii

The Hadza, or Hadzabe, are a small people of north-central Tanzania who live by hunting and gathering around the shores of Lake Eyasi. Numbering only around a thousand, they are

The Hamar, or Hamer, are an agropastoral people of the lower Omo Valley in the far south of Ethiopia, near the borders with Kenya and South Sudan. Numbering some tens

In the misty mountains of southern Yunnan, between the Red River and the Mekong, live the Hani, one of the fifty-five recognised ethnic minorities of China and the creators of

To the west and north of Delhi, on the fertile plains between the Yamuna and the deserts of Rajasthan, live the Haryanvi people, the hardy farmers, cattle-keepers, and wrestlers of