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In a similar vein as my citizenship by blood question -

What countries' (if any) nationality laws exist that will allow citizenship by ethnicity for people whose bloodline may not have current citizenship? And how does one prove ethnicity for this citizenship?

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  • Language tests mostly. More knowledgeable people might be able to explain how it works in practice in more specific cases.
    – Gala
    Mar 17, 2014 at 13:26
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    I am not sure I see the difference between the two questions.
    – Karlson
    Mar 17, 2014 at 13:35
  • Can you please clarify the difference between the two questions? I'm not entirely certain that I see it either, since ethnicity depends on heritage, which seems to be the root of your other question.
    – Tim Post
    Mar 17, 2014 at 14:15
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    @TimPost: There are territories which (currently) belong to other countries, but have a minority in some of the neighbouring country's ethnicity. One example is Hungarians living in the Carpathian basin, but not in Hungary (for example in Ukraine). Similar people are some Romanians living in Moldavia. Both countries have laws that make it easy for these ethnic groups to get a citizenship in the host country. Also since the host country is an EU member state this might instantly add some additional benfits to these groups, even if your ancestors were never a citizen in the host country.
    – SztupY
    Mar 17, 2014 at 14:21
  • Gotcha, now it makes sense :) Thanks @SztupY
    – Tim Post
    Mar 17, 2014 at 14:24

1 Answer 1

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Wikipedia has a fairly comprehensive list of the countries offering the right of return to people of native ethnic descent.

The ones that I am mostly familiar with would be Germany under which people of German descent that have been living in the former Soviet Union were allowed to immigrate back to Germany.

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  • Germany is a well-known case (+1). To elaborate a little bit on the second part of the question, there is a language test as part of the procedure.
    – Gala
    Mar 18, 2014 at 8:28

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