The Bugis people, also known as Buginese, are an ethnicity—the most numerous of the three major linguistic and ethnic groups of South Sulawesi (the others being Makassar and Toraja), in the south-western province of Sulawesi, third-largest island of Indonesia. The Bugis in 1605 converted to Islam from Animism.[4] The main religion embraced by the Bugis is Islam, with a small minority adhering to Christianity or a pre-Islamic indigenous belief called Tolotang.[5]

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Bugis

To Ugi ᨈᨚ ᨕᨘᨁᨗ
A couple donned in the neo-traditional costume, walking underneath a Lellu' (traditional folding canopy) during their wedding ceremony
Total population
6 million (2010 census)
Regions with significant populations
Indonesia	6,359,700[1]
Breakdown by Province in Indonesia             South Sulawesi 3,618,683             East Kalimantan 735,819             Southeast Sulawesi 496,432             Central Sulawesi 409,741             West Sulawesi 144,554             West Kalimantan 137,282             Riau 107,159             South Kalimantan 101,727             Jambi 96,145             Papua 88,991             Jakarta 68,227             West Papua 40,087
Malaysia	500,000[2]
Singapore	11,000[3]
Languages
Predominantly Bugis • Indonesian • Makassar Malay Also Massenrempulu • Malay
Religion
Predominantly Islam
Related ethnic groups
Austronesian peoples Makassarese Mandarese Toraja

Despite the population numbering only around six million, the Bugis are influential in the politics in modern Indonesia, and historically influential on the Malay peninsula, Sumatra, Borneo, Lesser Sunda Islands and other parts of the archipelago where they have migrated, starting in the late seventeenth century. The third president of Indonesia, B. J. Habibie,[6] and a former vice president of Indonesia, Jusuf Kalla, are Bugis. In Malaysia, the former prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin has Bugis ancestry.[7]

The Bugis people speak a distinct regional language in addition to Indonesian, called Bugis (Basa Ugi), with several different dialects. The Bugis language belongs to the South Sulawesi language group; other members include Makassarese, Toraja, Mandar[8] and Massenrempulu. The name Bugis is an exonym which represents an older form of the name; (To) Ugi is the endonym.[9]