{ { Infobox ethnic group
| group = Austronesian people
| image =
| image_caption = The Amis people of Taiwan performing a traditional tribal dance | pop = 400 million | region1 = | pop1 = 270 million (2020) | region2 = | pop2 = 109.3 million (2020) | region3 = | pop3 = 24 million (2016) | region4 = | pop4 = 19.2 million (2017) | region5 = | pop5 = 4.7 million | region6 = | pop6 = 1.9 million | region7 = | pop7 = 1.3 million | region8 = | pop8 = 1.2 million (2015) | region9 = | pop9 = 1.2 million (2019) | region10 = | pop10 = 936,375 (2023) | region11 = | pop11 = 855,000 (2006) | region12 = | pop12 = 576,300 | region13 = | pop13 = 575,067 (2020) | region14 = | pop14 = 478,000 (2005) | region15 = | pop15 = 450,000 (2006) | region16 = | pop16 = 272,000 | region17 = | pop17 = 249,000 (2011) | region18 = | pop18 = 230,000 (2017) | region19 = | pop19 = 195,000 (2016) | region20 = | pop20 = 150,000 (2010) | region21 = | pop21 = 157,445 (2020)<ref>
The Austronesian peoples, sometimes referred to as Austronesian-speaking peoples, are a large group of peoples in Taiwan, Malay Peninsula, parts of Mainland Southeast Asia, Maritime Southeast Asia, Micronesia, coastal New Guinea, Island Melanesia, Polynesia, and Madagascar that speak Austronesian languages. They also include indigenous ethnic minorities in Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand, Hainan, the Comoros, and the Torres Strait Islands. The nations and territories predominantly populated by Austronesian-speaking peoples are sometimes known collectively as Austronesia.
They originated from a prehistoric seaborne migration, known as the Austronesian expansion from pre-Han Taiwan, circa 1500 to 1000 BCE. Austronesians reached the northernmost Philippines, specifically the Batanes Islands, by around 2200 BCE. They used sails some time before 2000 BCE. In conjunction with their use of other maritime technologies (notably catamarans, outrigger boats, lashed-lug boat building, and the crab claw sail), this enabled their dispersal into the islands of the Indo-Pacific, culminating in the settlement of New Zealand . From 2000 BCE they assimilated (or were assimilated by) the earlier Paleolithic pre-Austronesian, and Australo-Melanesian Papuan populations. They reached as far as Easter Island to the east, Madagascar to the west, and New Zealand to the south. At the furthest extent, they might have also reached the Americas.
Aside from language, Austronesian peoples widely share cultural characteristics, including such traditions and technologies as tattooing, stilt houses, jade carving, wetland agriculture, and various rock art motifs. They also share domesticated plants and animals that were carried along with the migrations, including rice, coconuts, breadfruit, Dioscorea yams, taro, paper mulberry, chickens, pigs, and dogs.
History of research
The linguistic connections between Madagascar, Polynesia, and Southeast Asia, particularly the remarkable similarities between Malagasy, Malay, and Polynesian numerals, were recognized early in the colonial era by European authors. The first formal publication on these relationships was in 1708 by Dutch Orientalist Adriaan Reland, who recognized a "common language" from Madagascar to western Polynesia, although Dutch explorer Cornelis de Houtman observed linguistic links between Madagascar and the Malay Archipelago a century earlier in 1603. German naturalist Johann Reinhold Forster, who traveled with James Cook on his second voyage, also recognized the similarities of Polynesian languages to those of Island Southeast Asia. In his book Observations Made during a Voyage round the World (1778), he posited that the ultimate origins of the Polynesians might have been the lowland regions of the Philippines and proposed that they arrived to the islands via long-distance voyaging. But, Johann Reinhold's Observations Made During a Voyage Round the World (1778) and Georg's A Voyage Round the World (1777), mark a key moment in the beginnings of modern racism. "Employing the English word "race" as a synonym for human variety, they interpret the multiplicity of Polynesian culture in terms of a linear hierarchy that naturally ascends towards the white European ideal."