Two beautiful (Ethnic) Somali women in their traditional dress from Mogadishu in Somalia. Circa 1936.

The Somali people, also known as Somalis (Somali:
Soomaaliyeed, Arabic: الصوماليون), are an amalgamated clans of ancient nomadic and warrior Cushitic Somali-speaking ethnolinguistic group inhabiting the Horn of Africa popularly known as Somali Peninsula. Somalis who are known for being the most homogeneous people in Africa and in the world are predominantly Sunni Muslims and they have mixed over the years with Arab settlers.

They reside in Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya and Djibouti.
Ethnic Somalis population numbering over 18 million, with the larger concentration of over 8 million people living in Somali, over 4 million in Ethiopia, almost 1 million in Kenya and close to 500,000 in Djibouti; and with many also residing in parts of the Middle East, North America and Europe.

The Somalis are ancient indigenous people who originated from a common ancestor, Irir Samaale (Irir Samali) who migrated from the highlands of Ethiopia and is probably of Ethiopian Cushitic Oromo ethnicity. Samaale is generally regarded as the source of the ethnonym Somali.

It is believed that the nomadic Somali people existed in Ethiopia long before the prehistoric paintings on the cave of Laas Gaal in Somalia were ever made and that Irir Samale – possibly a nomadic man who came from a nomadic Ethiopian tribe – migrated to Somalia.