from 250 million to 600 million. Official designations and terminology of who is considered Indigenous vary between countries, ethnic groups and other factors. In the Americas, Australia and New Zealand, Indigenous status is often applied unproblematically to groups descended from the peoples who lived there prior to European settlement. However, In Asia and Africa, definitions of Indigenous status have been either rejected by certain peoples, or applied to minorities and or oppressed peoples, who may not be considered "Indigenous" in other contexts. Thus, population figures are less clear and may fluctuate dramatically. Etymology Indigenous is derived from the Latin word , meaning "sprung from the land, native". The Latin indigena is based on the Old Latin indu "in, within" + gignere "to beget, produce". Indu is an extended form of the Proto-Indo-European en or "in". The origins of the term Indigenous, used to describe people, are not related in any way to the origins of the term Indian, which has also been applied to Indigenous peoples of the Americas. Autochthonous originates from the Greek αὐτός autós meaning self/own, and χθών chthon meaning Earth. The term is based in the Indo-European root dhghem- (earth). The earliest documented use of this term was in 1804. Definitions As a reference to a group of people, the term Indigenous first came into use by Europeans who used it to differentiate the Indigenous peoples of the Americas from African people who were enslaved. It may have first been used in this context by Sir Thomas Browne. In Chapter 10 of Pseudodoxia Epidemica (1646), entitled "Of the Blackness of Negroes", Browne wrote "and although in many parts thereof there be at present swarms of Negroes serving under the Spaniard, yet were they all transported from Africa, since the discovery of Columbus; and are not indigenous or proper natives of America." In the 1970s, the term was used as a way of linking the experiences, issues, and struggles of groups of colonized people across international borders. At this time 'indigenous people(s)' also began to be used to describe a legal category in Indigenous law created in international and national legislation. The use of the 's' in 'peoples' recognizes that there are real differences between different Indigenous peoples. James Anaya, former Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, defined Indigenous peoples as "living descendants of pre-invasion inhabitants of lands now dominated by others. They are culturally distinct