A tough, no-nonsense race, the Minmatars are a determined and independent people. Their home planet of Matar is a natural paradise, although centuries of abuse have taken much from its beauty.
For the Minmatars, the most important thing in life is to be able to take care of yourself on your own, and although kin and family play an important role in their society, they prefer identifying themselves by the clan or tribe to which they belong. A clan can have any number of people in it, and its size is largely dictated by the main activity of its members. Most specialize in one area of activity. While those who live on a planet can focus on agricultural or industrial activity, others who travel around the world of EVE concentrate on trading, pirating, and suchlike.
The Minmatars are the most numerous of all the races in the world of EVE, but their vast numbers are divided into many factions. While the Minmatar Republic is the official state, only a quarter of all Minmatars are part of it. The largest proportion, almost a third, are enslaved within the huge Amarr Empire, while a fifth resides within the Gallente Federation, creating a powerful political bloc which keeps relations between the Gallenteans and the Amarrians in a constant state of tension. The remainder, who are not part of any formal organization, live as freemen throughout the world. Many are itinerant labourers, roaming from one system to another in search for work. A fair number make their living on the darker side of the law, acting as pirates, smugglers and peddlers in all kinds of illegal goods, and many of the larger criminal groups in the world of EVE are run by Minmatars.

The Minmatar are arguably the most versatile, but difficult to play, race in Eve. The Minmatar's background is that of a freed slave race, in appearance similar to what would be left of humanity after an apocalypse: ragged, war-torn, but tough, resourceful and determined. This is heavily reflected in both their ships' appearance and fighting style. A Minmatar fighter will find it hard to hold his own against the other races' fighters at first, but once the Minmatar fighter is well-trained skillwise (in other words, with everything trained to a decent level--drones, missiles, weapons, engineering, mechanic, electronics etc.) he can fight anytime, anywhere in any ship class and have a good chance at winning. The Minmatar must train to be able to tank their shields, tank their armor, use drones well, use autocannons and artillery (as projectile weapons are the Minmatar's primary weapon), use missiles, and use afterburners and microwarpdrives. Speed is the Minmatar's friend; some Matari "tanks" consist merely of great transversal velocity (speed at which the ship orbits, making it difficult or even impossible to hit).
Projectile weapons have their pros and cons. The main pro is that the Minmatar fighter pilot can, by selecting his ammunition type, choose what type of damage (electromagnetic, thermic etc.) to shoot at the enemy. The same, of course, applies to rockets and missiles--but the Minmatar use these weapons too. The main con of projectile weapons is that one must carry around a large amount of ammunition to load them with, and there is also the fact that one must pause in battle to reload.