people or peoples?

[jeweljoe]

Below given is one of the questions under `apostrophe' in the testing section of usingenglish.com:

Question #: 6: The peoples of the world must unite. This is correct.
User's answer: False
Correct answer: True
Additional Notes:

I thought the word `peoples' was incorrect. Please tell me when do we use `peoples' as plural and `people' as plural.

[Gёггч]

i often use peoples in these sentences:

China has 56 peoples.

The picture of the prehistoric peoples.

They are trade peoples.

am i right to use like this?

[cyberterm]

As far as I'm concerned People (n) is generally a plural word and it refers to a number of different concepts. BUT there IS an exception by which it could be used as a countable noun and that's when it refers to people who live in a particular area/place, country, etc. etc.

e.g. The local people(s) of my country. (either single or plural form is correct)

' Behnam

[Casiopea]

It's from a speech by Kofi Annan of Ghana, the (former) Secretary-General of the United Nations, delivered at the nuclear non-proliferation treaty review conference, United Nations, 2005. The very last lines of his speech read:

"The peoples of this world must unite, or they will perish...The atomic bomb has spelled [this] out for all men to understand."

Source: http://www.un.org/events/npt2005/statements/npt02sg.pdf

Is peoples grammatically correct? Yes, and Kofi Annan used it quite effectively too, to describe all the people on this plant, all nations, as a single community. The following is from the Usage Note at dictionary.com:

When peoples means “the entire body of persons who constitute a community or other group by virtue of a common culture, history, etc.,”... The aboriginal peoples of the Western Hemisphere speak many different languages.

Source: peoples - Definitions from Dictionary.com