The Acadians (French: Acadiens) are the descendants of the French who settle in Acadia during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Acadia is located in what is today Eastern Canada's Maritime provinces (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island), as well as parts of Quebec, present-day Maine to the Kennebec River, and on the West coast of Newfoundland. Acadia was a distinctly separate colony of New France.

It is ethnically, geographically and administratively different from the other French colonies and the French colony of Canada (modern-day Quebec).

As a result, the Acadians develop  a distinct history and culture.

The settlers whose descendants became Acadians primarily came from the southwestern region of France, also known as Occitania, such as the rural areas of Poitou-Charentes and Aquitaine (Gascony).

During the French and Indian War (the North American theater of the Seven Years' War), British colonial officers suspect that Acadians are aligned with France, after finding some Acadians fighting alongside French troops at Fort Beauséjour.

Though most Acadians remain neutral during the war, the British, together with New England legislators and militia, carry out the Great Expulsion (Le Grand Dérangement) of the Acadians between 1755 and 1764.

They forcefully deport  approximately 11,500 Acadians from the maritime region

Approximately one-third perish from disease and drowning.

In retrospect, the result will be described as an ethnic cleansing of the Acadians from Maritime Canada.

Most Acadians are deported to various British American colonies, where many are put into forced labor or servitude.

Some Acadians are deported to England, some to the Caribbean, and some to France.

After being expelled to France, many Acadians are eventually recruited by the Spanish government to migrate to Luisiana (present-day Louisiana).

Their descendants gradually develop what becomes known as Cajun culture.

In time, some Acadians return to the Maritime provinces of Canada, mainly to New Brunswick.

The British prohibit them from resettling their lands and villages in what had become Nova Scotia.

Before the American Revolutionary War, the Crown settles Protestant European immigrants and New England Planters in former Acadian communities and farmland.

After the war, it makes land grants in Nova Scotia to Loyalists (including nearly three thousand Black Loyalists, slaves of rebels given freedom after joining British forces).

British policy is to establish a majority culture of Protestant religions and to assimilate Acadians with the local populations where they resettle.

Acadians speak a variety of French called Acadian French.

Many of those in the southeastern region of New Brunswick speak Chiac and English.

The Louisiana Cajun descendants speak Cajun English.

Many also speak Cajun French, a close relative of Acadian French from Canada but influenced by Spanish and the West African languages.

Estimates of contemporary Acadian populations vary widely.

The Canadian census of 2006 will report only 96,145 Acadians in Canada, based on self-declared ethnic identity.

However the Canadian Encyclopedia estimates that there are at least 500,000 of Acadian ancestry in Canada, which would include many who declared their ethnic identity for the census as French or as Canadian.