If I'm not mistaken, there are more Irish in the US (UK and Australia, too, likely) than in Ireland.

totally right. but the force of the analogy would be stronger if the irish in ireland tended to speak gaelic as their first language, and so did irish in the USA. additionally, geographical segregation of the aforementioned groups is much sronger than for irish americans (despite a northeastern concentration). the ethnic groups are literally separated by a relatively new border.

The Hausa are possibly similar- the majority group in Niger yet more numerous in total in Nigeria. There are probably more examples in Africa.

The Hausa are possibly similar- the majority group in Niger yet more numerous in total in Nigeria. There are probably more examples in Africa.

kind of like afghanistan.

Parag Khanna touched on this in his TEDtalk last month:

http://www.youtube.com/watch? v=X...feature=channel

@Qohelet, you said...

If I'm not mistaken, there are more Irish in the US (UK and Australia, too, likely) than in Ireland.

I think it's similar with the Scottish too. I.e., there's more Scottish in the Canada or the US than in Scotland. (Australia has a lot of them too. But I don't think more than Scotland.)

I also remember hearing before that there are more Luxembourgians in the US than in Luxembourg.

Same goes for the speakers of Tswana, Sotho & Swazi; Botswana, Lesotho & Swaziland include a minority of speakers.

More Spaniards in Argentina than Spain too, if you don't mind classifying half-Spanish, half-Italian (and part Amerindian) persons as "Spanish." :-)

Portugal, 10 million Portuguese. Brazil, 170 million Portuguese.

Lebanon, 3.9 Million Lebanese. Brazil, 7 Million Lebanese.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Leb...Lebanese_people

The Pashtuns of Pakistan may be a special case: many of them are war refugees. OF course, some have been refugees for a long time, so even if we succeed in turning Afghanistan into a land of milk and honey, it's not at all clear how many would return.

Charles,

You're right about the Irish:
Ireland 4.2M
US 50-65M
UK 5-10M
Australia 5-7M

Worldwide Irish 70-95M

More than the population of Germany!

Similar with Armenians. More in diaspora than in homeland ( Although they claim more areas as traditional Armenian home land)

Comparing the population of Irish outside of Ireland to inside of ireland is not particular relevant to pashtuns in pakistan. An irish last name or family tradition of Irishness is no guarantee of significant Irish ancestry in the USA and to lesser degree Australia and the UK, beyond ancestry the cultural traditions of Ireland are not so strongly maintained in other countries and there is not separate language.

For example, my family had a tradition of irishnes turns out we are about 1/64 irish, and I don't detect any particular irish cultural traditions. They were catholic but that was by way of far more recent polish ancestry.

"Portugal, 10 million Portuguese. Brazil, 170 million Portuguese."

Brazil was a Portuguese colony though. That would be analogous to the English in America. There are more people of English descent in America than there are in England. Not terribly surprising.

I wonder if there are more people of German descent in America than in Germany.

Imposter John,

According to wikipedia, there 50 million German Americans and 80 million Germans.

Inner Mongolia (south mongolia) has long close historical tie with Han Chinese culture in term of trade, source of mercanary soldiers against outer mongolia. During Han dynasty, south or inner Xiongnu often serve in Han army against outer xiongu. No surprise, most inner mongolians would not like be in different country since they benefit greatly in economy within china. During Gengiskhan time, outer mongolians had to raid inner mongolian or tartar to get any industrial material like iron. Yet inner mongolians can get those civilized products through trade with Han Chinese.

Outer mongolians have very little affinity for Han chinese culture.

To be specific, what the original post refers to is cases in which a country is named for a particular ethnolinguistic group, but that ethnolinguistic group is actually more numerous in neighboring country. Most of the examples have been listed above: More Pashtun in Pakistan than Afghanistan (Afghan=Pashtun), more Mongols in China than Mongolia, more Azeris in Iran than in Azerbaijan, and more Swazi, Sotho, and Tswana in South Africa than in Swaziland, Lesotho, and Botswana. The other case is the Lao: more Lao in Thailand than in Laos (as long as the Isan of NE Thailand are classified as Lao, as they usually are).

I think I may have been wrong about there being more people of English descent in the U.S. than there were in England.

More Tajik people in both Afghanistan and Uzbekistan than Tajikistan

I believe more Armenians would have been in Turkey during after its formation than in Armenia if not they hadn't massacred them. Greeks possibly as well

Likely, at times in the past there were more people who called themselves "Greek" in areas outside of today's Greece though these numbers shrunk though repatriation, assimilation and adoptions of new identities (as with the Bulgarians, Macedonians, Albanians etc-though maybe they never were "greek")

john, no. lots of people who are "american" are probably english american.