The world is far more various than the familiar roll-call of great nations would suggest. Beyond the large and well-known peoples lie hundreds of smaller communities, each with its own language, history, faith, and way of life, many of them clinging to existence at the margins of larger states. This series, Peoples of the World, sets out to introduce ten of these fascinating and often overlooked cultures, from the Arctic to the Sahara, from a small mountainous corner of Europe to the frozen heart of Siberia.

Each of these peoples has its own remarkable story: an ancient origin, a struggle to survive, a language under pressure, a body of myth and tradition, and a present-day reality of revival or endurance. Together they form a portrait of human diversity that is too rarely told. Below you will find the full collection. Each article stands on its own, but read together they reveal common threads — the pressure of dominant states and languages, the resilience of small cultures, and the determined efforts of peoples everywhere to keep their identities alive.

The Ten Peoples in This Series

• The Sami — Europe’s Indigenous people of the Arctic, herders of reindeer across Sapmi.
• The Basque — A people of the Pyrenees whose language is related to no other on Earth.
• The Ainu — The forgotten Indigenous people of northern Japan, with their own gods and tongue.
• The Maori — Polynesian voyagers who crossed the Pacific to settle Aotearoa.
• The Amazigh (Berbers) — The Indigenous people of North Africa, older than Carthage and Rome.
• The Sorbs — Germany’s last Slavic people, keepers of decorated eggs and an endangered tongue.
• The Sakha (Yakuts) — Turkic horse herders who built a culture in one of the coldest places on Earth.
• The Welsh — Celtic heirs of the ancient Britons, keepers of an older Britain.
• The Tuvan — Throat singers at the center of Asia, briefly citizens of a forgotten country.
• The Mari — A Volga people who kept an ancient religion of sacred groves alive into today.

From the reindeer herders of the European Arctic to the keepers of sacred groves along the Volga, these ten peoples remind us that the human story is written not only by the great powers but by the countless smaller nations whose languages, beliefs, and traditions enrich our shared world. We hope you will explore each of their stories.