These words designate persons or things that belong to the place in which they are found or in which they originated. That which is born or produced in a specific region or country is native to it: a native New Zealander; architecture native to Scandinavia; birds native to South America. The word may also be used of things which have been naturalized in a place for some time; thus, one may speak of the coffee plant as being native to Brazil, although it was introduced into that country from Africa several hundred years ago.

Indigenous is more restricted in meaning than native in that it excludes the possibility of introduction from elsewhere, as of a species of animal or plant, or a race of people.

• The platypus is indigenous to Australia; Eskimos are indigenous to the Arctic regions.

Indigenous may also be applied to things that originate in a specified place.

• Collective improvisation in jazz is indigenous to New Orleans; The Irish have a rich, indigenous folklore.

Aboriginal is used chiefly of primitive peoples (Aborigines) having no known or recorded ancestors and inhabiting a region at its earliest known historical time: The Ainus are the aboriginal people of Japan. Less frequently, aboriginal is applied to native or indigenous plants and animals.

Endemic , in a biological sense, is used of plants and animals that are native to, and usually restricted to, a specific region or part of the world because they are peculiarly adapted to flourish there: The kiwi is endemic in New Zealand. When used in a medical sense, the word refers to diseases that are prevalent in a particular area: Cholera is endemic in the Orient.

Autochthonous , which originally meant "one sprung from the earth itself," is a less common synonym of native , aboriginal and indigenous . It is now most often used in geology of rocks and minerals produced in the places where they are found rather than brought in by some external agency, e.g. a glacier.