uncontacted people

Uncontacted peoples are groups of Indigenous peoples living without sustained contact with neighbouring communities and the world community. Indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation are groups who decide to remain uncontacted. Legal protections make estimating the total number of uncontacted peoples challenging, but estimates from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in the UN and the nonprofit group Survival International point to between 100 and 200 uncontacted tribes numbering up to 10,000 individuals total. In 2025, Survival International published the first comprehensive report on uncontacted peoples worldwide. It found robust evidence of 196 uncontacted peoples living in ten countries across South America, Asia and the Pacific. A majority of uncontacted peoples live in South America, particularly Brazil, where Survival has found evidence of 124 groups.

Knowledge of uncontacted peoples comes mostly from encounters with neighbouring Indigenous communities and aerial footage.