People are men, women, and children. People is normally used as the plural of person, instead of 'persons'.

The people is sometimes used to refer to ordinary men and women, in contrast to the government or the upper classes.

A people is all the men, women, and children of a particular country or race.

If a place or country is peopled by a particular group of people, that group of people live there.

If something such as a story or a time in history is peopled with people of a particular kind, those people occur or exist in it.