Other meanings of Sami people
Indigenous peoples
The Sami people are an Indigenous people inhabiting northern Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia, in a region traditionally called Sápmi. Their communities share related languages and historical ties to northern landscapes, but differ in dialect, livelihood, religious history, and political experience. Population estimates vary because states count ethnicity differently, commonly placing the total at roughly 80,000–100,000. 1
The Sami people form a culturally diverse Indigenous population whose homeland, Sápmi, crosses four modern state borders. Sápmi extends from central Norway and Sweden through northern Finland into the Kola Peninsula of Russia, encompassing coastal, mountain, forest, and lake environments. 1 The name covers communities that do not constitute a single uniform ethnic or economic group.
Sámi languages belong to the Uralic language family and are related to Finnish and Estonian, not to the Germanic or Slavic languages dominant in the surrounding states. Linguists generally distinguish nine or ten Sámi languages, depending on classification; North Sámi has the largest number of speakers, while several smaller languages are severely endangered. 2 Many Sámi also speak the majority language of the country where they live.
Sámi livelihoods have long combined several forms of subsistence rather than relying exclusively on reindeer herding. Fishing, hunting, gathering, farming, handicrafts, and wage employment have all been important in different areas, while reindeer husbandry became especially prominent in inland and mountain regions. 1 Reindeer herding is usually organized through family and local cooperative structures, and only a minority of Sámi make their primary living from it.
From the early modern period onward, expanding states imposed taxation, Christianization, land regulation, schooling, and administrative borders. Nineteenth- and twentieth-century assimilation policies often restricted Sámi languages and treated Indigenous land use as backward or incompatible with state development. These pressures disrupted transmission of language and customary knowledge, although cultural revitalization has strengthened in recent decades. 6
Sámi political institutions represent shared Indigenous interests while operating within separate national legal systems. Norway, Sweden, and Finland each have an elected Sámi Parliament; Norway’s parliament was established in 1989, followed by Sweden’s in 1993 and Finland’s in 1996. Their authority differs, but they generally address language, culture, education, livelihoods, and consultation rather than replacing national legislatures. 34
Norway recognizes the Sámi as an Indigenous people and has incorporated protections for Sámi culture and language into its constitutional and legal framework. Finland and Sweden also provide varying statutory protections, though disputes continue over land use, mining, forestry, wind power, fishing, and consultation. Russia’s Sámi communities have different institutional and legal conditions from those in the Nordic countries. 5
Sámi cultural life is marked by local variation and by practices that do not fit a single pastoral stereotype. Traditional clothing, often called gákti, can indicate regional origin, family connections, and ceremonial status, while designs and materials differ widely. Joik, a distinctive vocal tradition, may evoke a person, animal, place, or experience rather than simply narrate a story; it has both ritual roots and contemporary forms.
Cross-border movement is central to Sámi history because national frontiers divided older social and economic networks. The Skolt Sámi of northeastern Finland and adjacent Russia, for example, have a distinct language and Orthodox Christian heritage. Urban Sámi communities are also significant, and identity may be maintained through language courses, cultural associations, schools, arts, and political activity far from the traditional northern settlements. Cultural rights therefore concern both rural land use and urban continuity. 26
“Sámi” is a common English spelling alongside “Sami”; population figures are approximate because national censuses generally do not use identical ethnic criteria.
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