The following sections briefly detail the historical and present distribution of ethnic Germans by region, but generally exclude modern expatriates, who have a presence in the United States, Scandinavia and major urban areas worldwide.

In 1980, the first year of the US Census national origins questionnaire, Americans self-identifying as being of German ancestry formed the second-largest group.

English is the most widespread ancestry in the United States, and still the largest white demographic in both 'Alone', and 'Alone and In Combination' categories in the 2020 Census, though demographers still consider this an under-count due to previous national origin studies showing over 2x more English ancestry than German as recent as 'Recent Social Trends in the United States: Report of the President's Research Committee on Social Trends (1933).[3].

Austrians historically were identified as and considered themselves Germans until after the defeat of Nazi Germany and the end of World War II.

There has been a continued historical presence of Germans in these regions due to the interrelated processes of conquest and colonization as well as migration and border changes.

Settlements due to border changes were largely 20th century developments caused by the new political order after the two world wars.

Before World War II, some 30% of the population in Czechia were ethnic Germans, and in the border regions and certain other areas they were in the majority.

There, the Germans live mainly in the northeastern area of France, i.e., in regions close to the Franco-German border (i.e. Alsace), and the island of Corsica.

Prior to World War II, approximately 1.5 million Danube Swabians lived in Hungary, Romania, and Yugoslavia.

There are smaller, unique populations of Germans who arrived so long ago that their dialect retains many archaic features heard nowhere else: the Cimbrians are concentrated in various communities in the Carnic Alps, north of Verona, and especially in the Sugana Valley on the high plateau northwest of Vicenza in the Veneto region; the Walsers, who originated in the Swiss Wallis, live in the provinces of Aostatal, Vercelli, and Verbano-Cusio-Ossola; the Mòchenos live in the Fersina Valley.

Smaller German-speaking communities also exist in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region: the Carinthians in the Canale Valley (municipalities of Tarvisio, Malborghetto Valbruna and Pontebba) and the Zahren and Timau Germans in Carnia.

[85] Successively since 1850 groups of specialised workers from Styria, Austria, followed by German miners from Freiburg settled in the same area.

Individuals of the community include Alfredo Keil (1850–1907), composer of A Portuguesa, the Portuguese national anthem, archaeologist Virgínia Rau (1907–1973), banker and industrialist António Champalimaud (1918–2004), architect Francisco Keil do Amaral (1910–1975) and former prime minister Ernesto Hintze Ribeiro (1849–1907).

Contemporary figures of German descent include football player Diego Moreira, Eurovision song contest winner Salvador Sobral, surfer Nic von Rupp, actresses Catarina Wallenstein and Vera Kolodzig, and tennis player Maria João Koehler.

Amongst the most notable Luso-Germans there is undoubtedly João Frederico Ludovice, who was commissioned the project for the Mafra National Palace in 1711.

At the outbreak of World War I, French, Belgian and British troops invaded the German colony in 1914 and fully occupied it during the Kamerun campaign.

Following Germany's defeat, the Treaty of Versailles divided the territory into two League of Nations mandates (Class B) under the administration of Great Britain and France.

Most German-speakers live in the capital, Windhoek, and in smaller towns such as Swakopmund and Lüderitz, where German architecture is highly visible.

After Tanganyika and Ruanda-Urundi became British and Belgian mandates following Germany's defeat in World War I, some of these communities remained.

Smaller numbers of ethnic Germans immigrated in the former Southeast Asian territories of Malaysia (British), Indonesia (Dutch) and the Philippines (American) in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Reinwardt (founder and first director of Bogor Botanical Garden), Walter Spies (German of Russian origin, who became the artist that made Bali known to the world), and Franz Wilhelm Junghuhn (owner of a big plantation in the south of Bandung and dubbed "the Humboldt of the East" because of his ethno-geographical notes).

After the German reunification, a large percentage of "guest workers" from Communist nations sent to East Germany returned to their home countries.

After World War II, large numbers of Germans emigrated to Australia to escape war-torn Europe.

From Celtic times, the early Germanic tribes settled from the Baltic all the way to the Black Sea until the great migrations of the 4-6th century AD.

[134][135] In the Middle Ages, Germans were invited to migrate to Poland and the central and eastern regions of the German Holy Roman Empire and also the Kingdom of Hungary following the Mongol invasions of the 12th century, and then once again during the late 17th century after the Austrian-Ottoman wars to set up farms and repopulate the eastern regions of the Austrian Empire and Balkans.

This list simply gives the region with which they are associated, and does not include people from countries with German as an official national language.

In general, it also omits some collective terms in common use defined by political border changes where this is antithetical to the current structure.

[clarification needed] Such terms include: Roughly grouped: In the Americas, one can divide the groups by current nation of residence: ...or by ethnic or religious criteria: In Africa, Oceania, and East/Southeast Asia A visible sign of the geographical extension of the German language is the German-language media outside the German-speaking countries.

Prior to that date, German nationality law allowed dual citizenship only with other EU countries and Switzerland; with other countries, in some cases: A law adopted in June 2019 allows the revocation of the German citizenship of dual citizens who have joined or supported a terror militia such as the Islamic State and are at least 18 years old.

Germany regularly publishes travel warnings on the website of the Auswärtiges Amt (Federal Foreign Office) to its citizens.