2,407 articles
Tuvans
Tuvans (Tyva kizhi), a Turkic-speaking people of the Tuva Republic in Russia with diasporas in Mongolia and China, known for xöömei throat-singing, Tibetan Buddhism with shamanism, and a history of Manchu rule, the 1914 Russian protectorate, and the 1921–1944 Tuvan People's Republic.
Twa
Twa, also known as Batwa, is a collective term for several Central African forest peoples, historically hunter-gatherers of short stature in the DRC, Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi.
Two-child policy
Two-child policy: China's 2016 universal two-child policy (全面两孩), replacing the one-child policy, and Vietnam's 1988 two-child limit, abolished 2025; covers birth effects, sex ratio, and the 2021 three-child shift.
Two-nation theory
Two-nation theory (دو قومی نظریہ, do qaumī nazariya): the doctrine that Hindus and Muslims of the subcontinent are two separate nations, adopted by the Muslim League in the 1940 Lahore Resolution, justifying the 1947 partition of India and challenged by Bangladesh's 1971 secession.
Ugandan Asian return migration
Ugandan Asian return migration is the return, from the 1980s and 1990s onward, of South Asians expelled from Uganda by Idi Amin in 1972, along with property restitution.
Ukrainian emigration to Canada and the United States
Ukrainian emigration to Canada and the United States is the wave-based movement of Ukrainians to North America, bringing roughly 250,000 to the US and 170,000 to Canada by 1914.
Ukrainians (українці)
Ukrainians (українці) are the East Slavic nation native to Ukraine, speaking Ukrainian; formerly called Rusyns or Little Russians, they formed a nation-state only in the 20th century, with independence in 1991.
Ulch people
Ulch people (nani), Tungusic indigenous ethnic group of the lower Amur in Khabarovsk Krai, Russia; about 2,800 in 2010 census, with under 150 speakers of the Ulch language; fishing culture with shamanism and bear festival.
Ulster Scots people
Ulster Scots people are an ethnographic group in Ulster, chiefly Northern Ireland, descended from seventeenth-century Lowland Scottish Presbyterian settlers; also called Scots-Irish in the United States.
Uncontacted peoples
Uncontacted peoples, or Indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation, live without sustained contact with outside society; about 196 groups in 10 countries, over 95% in the Amazon, face logging, mining, disease, and missionary threats.
United Grand Lodge of England
The United Grand Lodge of England (UGLE) is the governing body of Freemasonry in England, Wales, and overseas districts, formed by the union of two rival grand lodges in 1813.
United States Junior Chamber
United States Junior Chamber (Jaycees, JCI USA), civic and leadership organization founded 1915 in St. Louis by Henry Giessenbier, nationally organized 1920; renamed United States Jaycees 1965; Supreme Court ordered women's admission 1984.
Upper middle class
Upper middle class: the higher-status segment of the middle class, marked by graduate education, professional occupations like law and medicine, household incomes commonly above $100,000, and top-quintile earnings; distinct from lower middle class and upper class.
Urban sprawl
Urban sprawl: low-density, dispersed outward growth of cities, first named in the late 1940s. Measured by density, fragmentation, and centrality; built-up land has grown twice as fast as population since 1975, driving compact-city and smart-growth policies.
Urbanism
Urbanism is the study and practice of how cities are organized, built, and lived in, spanning urban form theory, land-use and transport planning, public space design, and critical traditions such as the right to the city and postcolonial urbanism.
Ute people
The Ute (Nuche, Núu-ci) are an Indigenous Shoshonean-speaking people of the Colorado and Utah mountains, once organized into bands such as the Mouache and Weenuchiu, now three federally recognized tribes: Southern Ute, Ute Mountain Ute, and Uintah-Ouray.
Uzbeks
Uzbeks (Oʻzbeklar) are a Turkic-speaking ethnic group native to Central Asia who form the majority of Uzbekistan and also live in large communities in Tajikistan and Afghanistan.
Vaikom Satyagraha
Vaikom Satyagraha (30 March 1924 to 23 November 1925), Travancore nonviolent campaign led by T.K. Madhavan, Periyar E.V. Ramasamy, and guided by Gandhi, seeking lower-caste access to roads around the Vaikom Mahadeva temple; ended in compromise and preceded the 1936 Temple Entry Proclamation.
Valet
Valet: a male personal servant attending one employer's wardrobe, dressing, packing, and confidential errands; from Middle French valet. Also hotel laundry staff and car-parking attendants; historically paired with butlers, now usually merged into one role.
Vanjari caste
Vanjari (Wanjari, Banjari, Laman) caste of Maharashtra and neighboring states, traditionally pack-bullock grain and salt carriers; now mainly agriculturists classified OBC, distinct from the Banjara denotified tribe.
Vanniyar (வன்னியர்)
Vanniyar (வன்னியர்), also Vanniar or Vanniakula Kshatriya, is a large Tamil Most Backward Class caste of northern Tamil Nadu, associated with the PMK party; its 10.5% internal reservation was struck down by the Madras High Court (2021) and the Supreme Court (2022).
Vaquero
Vaquero: Spanish-language term for a mounted cattle herder, from vaca (cow), first attested 1246. Source of American cowboy gear, techniques, and words such as rodeo, lasso, and buckaroo.
Varna (वर्ण) (Hinduism)
Varna (वर्ण) is the fourfold Hindu textual classification of society into Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, and Shudras, first described in the Rigveda's Purushasukta and elaborated in the Manusmriti; distinct from jati, the thousands of endogamous caste groups structuring social life.
Vedda (වැද්දා)
Vedda (වැද්දා), also Vanniyalettho or Wanniyalaeto, are the indigenous people of Sri Lanka speaking a language isolate. Genetically drifted with deep links to Indian tribal populations, they number under 1% of the population and lack formal indigenous recognition.
Vellalar (வேளாளர்)
Vellalar (வேளாளர்), also Vellala, dominant Tamil landowning farmer caste; highest-ranking Sudras of the Tamil country, chief rice growers and irrigation managers; dominant caste of Jaffna; name also adopted by Devendrakula Vellalar Scheduled Castes.
Vellappally Natesan (വെള്ളാപ്പിള്ളി നടേശൻ)
Vellappally Natesan (വെള്ളാപ്പിള്ളി നടേശൻ), Ezhava community leader, general secretary of SNDP Yogam and secretary of Sree Narayana Trusts; Padma Bhushan 2026; BDJS NDA ally; named in the ₹15 crore microfinance vigilance case.
Venezuelan refugee crisis
The Venezuelan refugee crisis is the mass displacement of over 7.9 million Venezuelans by December 2024, driven by economic collapse, political repression, and shortages of food and medicine.
Veronique Peck
Veronique Peck, nee Veronique Passani (1932-2012), French-born journalist for France Soir, philanthropist, and wife of actor Gregory Peck from 1955; raised $50 million for the American Cancer Society and led the Gregory Peck Reading Series in Los Angeles.
Viet people
Viet (Kinh) people, Vietnam's majority ethnic group (85.3% in 2019), Austroasiatic Việt–Mường language family, speakers of Vietnamese; Lac Viet origins, Dong Son culture, millennium of Chinese rule, global Viet kieu diaspora.
Vietnamese Americans
Vietnamese Americans are people in the United States who trace origins to Vietnam, about 2.3 million in 2023, largely from refugee resettlement after the 1975 fall of Saigon.