Ensembl Genomes HomeEnsembl Plants HomeEnsembl Plants Home

What do the population codes for human allele frequencies mean?

In views like Population genetics in the variation tab, you may find three letter codes for populations.

These come from the HapMap project, and/or the 1000 Genomes project.

The following table describes the population codes, and shows which populations are grouped into super populations.

Population Code Description Super Population Code
CHB Han Chinese in Bejing, China
EAS
JPT Japanese in Tokyo, Japan EAS
CHS Southern Han Chinese EAS
CDX Chinese Dai in Xishuanagbanna, China
EAS
KHV Kinh in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam EAS
CEU

Utah Residents (CEPH) with Northern and Western European ancestry

EUR
TSI Toscani in Italia EUR
FIN Finnish in Finland EUR 
GBR British in England and Scotland EUR 
IBS Iberian population in Spain EUR
YRI Yoruba in Ibadan, Nigera
AFR
LWK Luhya in Webuye, Kenya
AFR
MAG Mandinka in The Gambia AFR
MSL Mende in Sierra Leone
AFR
ESN Esan in Nigera 
AFR
ASW American's of African Ancestry in SW USA 
AFR 
ACB African Carribean in Barbados 
AFR 
MXL Mexican Ancestry from Los Angeles USA
AMR
PUR Puerto Rican from Puerto Rica AMR
CLM Colombian from Medellian, Colombia AMR 
PEL Peruvian from Lima, Peru 
AMR 
GIH Gujarati Indian from Houston, Texas 
SAS 
PJL Punjabi from Lahore, Pakistan 
SAS
BEB Bengali from Bangladesh 
SAS 
STU Sri Lankan Tamil from the UK 
SAS 
ITU Indian Telugu from the UK 
SAS 

 

These populations have been divided into 5 super populations

  • AFR, African
  • AMR, Ad Mixed American
  • EAS, East Asian
  • EUR, European
  • SAS, South Asian


If you have any other questions about Ensembl, please do not hesitate to contact our HelpDesk. You may also like to subscribe to the developers' mailing list.