Sudan / Germany: Anonymous photograph of German animal merchant Carl Hagenbeck's (1844-1913) 'Sudanese troupe', displayed in a Nubian human zoo exhibit that toured Berlin, London and Paris, c. late 1870s

Human zoos, also called ethnological expositions, were 19th-, 20th-, and 21st-century public exhibitions of humans, usually in a so-called natural or primitive state.

The displays often emphasized the cultural differences between Europeans of Western civilization and non-European peoples or with other Europeans who practiced a lifestyle deemed more primitive. Some of them placed indigenous populations in a continuum somewhere between the great apes and Europeans.

Ethnological expositions are sometimes criticized and ascertained as highly degrading and racist, depending on the show and individuals involved.

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