Afro-European
The term Afro-European, Black European or Afro European refers to Europeans who trace at least part of their ancestry to Sub Saharan Africa, mostly to former colonies.
The concept of "Afro-Europeans" is modeled after African Americans by associations and movements militating in favor of equal opportunities for black and mixed-race people from overseas territories and Europe.
European Union
In the European Union as of 2018, there is a record of approximately 9.3 million people of Sub Saharan African or Afro-Caribbean descent, comprising around 2% of the total population, with over half located in France. The countries with the largest African population in Europe are:| Country | Population | Comments / source |
| France | 5,500,000 | Estimate as the French State does not allow collection of racial or national origin statistics. Most have roots in the former French colonies in Africa, with around 800,000 having roots in the French Caribbean islands |
| Portugal | 600,000 | Approximated using statistics on foreign born persons to estimate full and partial descendants based on birth statistics. Most have roots from former Portuguese colonies in Africa. There are over 360,000 Sub Saharan born immigrants in Portugal alongside several hundred thousand Brazilian born. |
| Spain | 1,045,120 | Approximated using statistics on foreign born persons to estimate full and partial descendants based on birth statistics. There are 270,000 born in Sub Saharan Africa and an additional 200,000 born in African Majority Latin America and Caribbean. Most are former Spanish colonies in Latin America and Equatorial Guinea, also includes many contract workers from Africa. |
| Netherlands | 700,000 | Approximated using statistics on foreign born persons to estimate full and partial descendants based on birth statistics. Most have roots from former Dutch colonies in the Caribbean. |
| Germany | 494,000 | Sub-Saharan Africans and their descendants, alongside any by racial or mixed race of African heritage account for 494,000 people, with Egyptians/Algerians/Moroccans and similar North Africans comprising an additional 442,000. |
| Italy | 1,096,089 | Sub-Saharan Africans and their descendants, Estimate their descendants counted as non-Italians. |
| Belgium | 600,000 | Estimate making use of current sub-Saharan born population and approximate progeny born and their descendants based on historical migration and birth statistics. Most have roots in the former Belgian colonies of the Congo, Rwanda, and Burundi as well as other French-speaking African countries. |
| Sweden | 301,370 | Sub-Saharan Africans and their descendants, alongside any by racial or mixed race of African heritage are counted. Consists mostly of recent immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. Most of them are from Somalia, Eritrea and countries around. Some French and British nationals of African descent can be found in Malmö and Stockholm. |
| Republic of Ireland | 64,639 | Sub-Saharan Africans and their descendants, alongside any by racial or mixed race of African heritage are counted. 2016 Census is used. |
| Denmark | 52,795 | Sub-Saharan Africans and their descendants, alongside any by racial or mixed race of African heritage are counted. |
| Finland | 44,529 | I.e., according to Statistics Finland, people in Finland: whose both parents are Sub-Saharan African-born, or whose only known parent was born in SSA, or who were born in SSA and whose parents' countries of birth are unknown. Thus, for example, people with one Finnish parent and one SSA parent or people with more distant SSA ancestry are not included in this country-based non-ethnic figure. Because the figure is country-based, it may include some Sub-Saharan white Africans. Also, SSA-born adoptees' backgrounds are determined by their adoptive parents, not by their biological parents. They are mainly from Somalia, Nigeria, DR Congo, Ethiopia, and Ghana. |
| Austria | 35,000 | Estimate making use of current Sub-Saharan born population and approximate progeny born and their descendants based on historical migration and birth statistics. |
The remaining 15 states of the European Union have fewer than 60,000 individuals of Sub-Saharan African descent altogether. As countries such as Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Romania and Greece have received little to no immigration from Sub Saharan Africa or interaction that would have caused the formation of black or mixed race communities. Black populations, inclusive of descendants, mixed race people, and temporary students, number fewer than 4,000 in each of these states.
The Rest of Europe
The United Kingdom has approximately 2.5 million black people, inclusive of mixed race, according to the 2011 Census. Switzerland and Norway have 114,000 and 115,000 people of Sub-Saharan African descent, respectively; primarily composed of refugees and their descendants, but this is only the numbers for first generation migrants and second generation migrants with two parents from a different country. There are no official numbers in Norway regarding Afro-Norwegians, as Norway does not have census regarding race or ethnicity. However, Norway collects data on migrants up to the second generation, which can be used to accurately estimate the effective Black population.The East Slavic and West Balkan states along with Turkey have negligible populations of Black people, numbering fewer than 40,000 altogether; primarily composed of foreign students from Africa mostly in Universities in Turkey and Russia.
Altogether, from these estimates and statistics there are roughly 12.1 million Black people in Europe, with over two-thirds from the United Kingdom or France.
If North Africans, who are of Berber or Arab ancestry, were to be included, this estimate would double to nearly 22 million.
More than 1,000,000 sub-Saharan Africans had settled in Europe between 2010 and 2017.