The Greeks are an ethnic group native to Greece in the Balkans. Once a colonial people that had a vast colonial empire extending to settlements on the Black Sea shore of northern Turkey, along the Ionian coastline of Turkey, on several Mediterranean islands such as Cyprus and Crete, on the coastline of southern Italy, and in Egypt (in addition to the lands once ruled by Alexander the Great's empire), the Greeks have a large diaspora. Today, 10,000,000 Greeks live in Greece, 3,000,000 in the United States, 721,000 in Cyprus, 345,000 in the United Kingdom, 395,000 in Germany, 378,300 in Australia, 252,960 in Canada, 200,000 in Albania, 85,640 in Russia, 91,000 in Ukraine, 200,000 in Italy, 45,000 in South Africa, 50,000 in Brazil, 35,000 in France, 30,000 in Argentina, 350 in Peru, 35,000 in Belgium, 15,000 in Georgia, 15,000 in Sweden, 12,000 in Kazakhstan, 11,000 in Switzerland, 28,500 in Bulgaria, and several thousands in other places; there are around 17,000,000 Greeks in the world. The main religion of the Greeks is Orthodox Christianity, the official religion of Greece, and about 98% of the population is Christian. There are very small percentages of Catholic, pagan, and Jewish Greeks.
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