language in heavy decline. Rest of the world Minorities exist in the countries of the former Soviet Union, Poland, Romania, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Belgium, Italy, Canada, Chile, the United States, Latin America, Namibia, South Africa, Israel, and Australia. These German minorities, through their ethno-cultural vitality, exhibit an exceptional level of heterogeneity: variations concerning their demographics, their status within the majority community, the support they receive from institutions helping them to support their identity as a minority. Among them are small groups (such as those in Namibia) and many very large groups (such as the almost 1 million non-evacuated Germans in Russia and Kazakhstan or the near 500,000 Germans in Brazil (see Riograndenser Hunsrückisch German)), groups that have been greatly "folklorised" and almost completely linguistically assimilated (such as most people of German descent in the US, Canada, Australia, Argentina and Brazil), and others, such as the true linguistic minorities (like the still German-speaking minorities in the US, Argentina and Brazil, in western Siberia or in Romania and Hungary); other groups, which are classified as religio-cultural groups rather than ethnic minorities, (such as the Eastern-Low German-speaking Mennonites in Paraguay, Mexico, Belize or in the Altay region of Siberia) and the groups who maintain their status thanks to strong identification with their ethnicity and their religious sentiment (such as the groups in Upper Silesia, Poland or in South Jutland in Denmark). Statistics Native speakers Below is a list of countries and one notable region with German-language-speaking populations. Subnational territories Native and non-native speakers Ethnologue estimates See also Distribution of German diasporas Germanic languages Germans List of countries and territories where German is an official language Notes References External links German language studying in the world in 2010 (with evolution from 2005) German language studying in the world in 2005 (with evolution from 2000) German language in the world in 2012 (full report) Development of German in South America Deutsche Minderheiten/Riograndenser Hunsrückisch Linguistic minorities German