An ethnic group or ethnicity is a population of human beings whose members identify with each other, either on the basis of a presumed common genealogy or ancestry, or recognition by others as a distinct group, or by common cultural, linguistic, religious, or territorial traits. Processes that result in the emergence of such identification are summarized as ethnogenesis. Members of an ethnic group, on the whole, claim cultural continuities over time, although historians and anthropologists have documented that many of the cultural practices on which various ethnic groups are based are of relatively recent invention.
The term is used in contrast to race, which refers to a classification of physical and genetic traits perceived as common to certain groups.