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Historically the most ethnically diverse cities/towns
#1
Which were historically the most ethnically diverse cities or towns?

I nominate Daugavpils in Latvia. According to the 1930 census it had:

- 27.0% Latvians
- 26.9% Jews
- 20.8% Poles
- 19.5% Russians
- 2.3% Belarusians
- 3.5% all others

Were there any other cities with no ethnic group being above 30%?
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#2
I think you are considering only Europe because in the American Continent the ethnic/racial diversity is far bigger depending on the criteria and historical conjunctures.
In Iberia or Portugal I would demarcate between the Christian Reconquista and the Southern Islamic cities in terms of ethnicities, religions and compositions, the Christian Reconquista homogeneized the cities with the National State but groups of Jews, Africans and different European ethnicites/languages were also present in different moments and compositions.
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#3
I wonder what Manila was like at Spain's peak? SEA Sultanates, Chinese, Japanese, Pacific islanders, folks from anywhere in Spain's network including the Americas.
R1b>M269>L23>L51>L11>P312>DF19>DF88>FGC11833 >S4281>S4268>Z17112>FT354149

Ancestors: Francis Cooke (M223/I2a2a) b1583; Hester Mahieu (Cooke) (J1c2 mtDNA) b.1584; Richard Warren (E-M35) b1578; Elizabeth Walker (Warren) (H1j mtDNA) b1583; John Mead (I2a1/P37.2) b1634; Rev. Joseph Hull (I1, L1301+ L1302-) b1595; Benjamin Harrington (M223/I2a2a-Y5729) b1618; Joshua Griffith (L21>DF13) b1593; John Wing (U106>Z8>Z1) b1584; John Howland (U106>Z8>Z1) b1593; Elizabeth Tilley (Howland) (H1a1 mtDNA) b1607; Thomas Gunn (DF19) b1605; Hermann Wilhelm (DF19) b1635
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#4
(06-12-2024, 02:06 PM)RCO Wrote: I think you are considering only Europe because in the American Continent the ethnic/racial diversity is far bigger depending on the criteria and historical conjunctures.
In Iberia or Portugal I would demarcate between the Christian Reconquista and the Southern Islamic cities in terms of ethnicities, religions and compositions, the Christian Reconquista homogeneized the cities with the National State but groups of Jews, Africans and different European ethnicites/languages were also present in different moments and compositions.

Agreed - Look at New York City:

   

This almost meets the sub-30% mark without really breaking it down into ethnicity. 

For example, by comparison, I think Jews, Latvians, Poles, Russians and Belarusians would probably all be lumped into "white" on this table. Similarly, "Asian" on this table includes backgrounds as diverse as Japanese and Indian. Each category is itself an over-simplification, because the diversity is so extreme.

Data on London is more granular, and it reveals a fairly diverse European city: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_London

Similarly, here are numbers for Toronto, which is another highly diverse city in North America (less than 15% per ethnicity).  Note the difference between the broad categories in the first table and the more granular categories in the second:

   

   

I think if you were to break a place like New York (or Chicago, Houston, Buenos Aires, etc) down similarly, you'd see similar diversity.
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#5
I think the Brazilian cities were among the most ethnically and racially diverse because they were/are very big and have different Continental genetic origins.
Rio de Janeiro City in 1850 had a population of more than 205,000, almost 40%, 80,000 were slaves, most of them African from different parts of Africa, the Blacks and Pardo population with admixed Native American origins also had big proportions. The Brazilian Portuguese 20% and the recent Portuguese immigrants were almost 10%, more other European immigrants and communities with local Churches and even Cemiteries like the English, Italians, Germans, Spaniards, French, Austrians, Jews (Sephardic and Ashkenazi) and the Lebanese were starting to arrive.
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#6
Makhachkala (2021 census):

Avars (25.6%)

Kumyks (18.9%)

Dargins (15.5%)

Lezgins (13.9%)

Laks (11.8%)

Russians (5.9%)

Tabasarans (2.3%)

Rutuls (1.2%)

Nogais (1.0%)

Aghuls (1.0%)

...

Total population: 623,254
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#7
Odesa in 1939 was also very diverse:

Jews - 33.26%
Russians - 30.88%
Ukrainians - 29.60%
Poles - 1.46% (down from 4.31% in 1897)
Germans - 1.39%
Bulgarians - 0.82%
Moldovans - 0.43%
Armenians - 0.38%
Etc., etc.

Another example is Timișoara in 1930:

Germans - 32.3%
Hungarians - 26.6%
Romanians - 24.6%
Jews - 7.1%
Serbs - 2.2%
Gypsies - 0.4%
All others - 6.8%

Or Novi Sad (now in Serbia) in 1910:

Hungarians - 39.7%
Serbs - 17.6%
Germans - 17.6%
Slovaks - 4.3%
All others - 20.8%
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#8
Bratislava in 1930:

32% Slovaks
25% Germans
23% Czechs
16% Hungarians
4% Jews
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