A website dedicated to the Gypsy and Traveller community has created a guide to understanding them better.
Tensions between Traveller and settled communities often run high, with residents complaining about Travellers pitching caravans on unauthorised sites and leaving behind rubbish.
However, the website Travellers' Times has said only a small number of Travellers camp illegally as it sets out to dispel myths about the group, Cambridgeshire Live reported.
The Travellers Times explained that Romany Gypsies are the descendants of a migration of people from Northern India in around 10-12 AD, who moved across Europe and reached Great Britain in the 1600's. Roma usually refers to those that settled in Europe.
Irish Travellers - sometimes known as Pavee - and Scottish Travellers are descended from nomadic people in Ireland and Britain.
Romany Gypsies and Scottish, Welsh and Irish Travellers are all ethnic minorities, recognised under UK law and the Irish government.
There is also a cross-party parliamentary group called the All Party Parliamentary Group for Gypsies, Roma and Travellers, which focuses on the communities.
All the different Gypsy, Roma and Traveller groups in the UK have a shared language or dialect and some shared cultural practices.
In the 2011 Census, 58,000 people identified themselves as Gypsy or Irish Traveller, accounting for just 0.1 per cent of the population of England and Wales. However, the figure is likely to be much higher.
Government figures suggest as much as five per cent of the Gypsy and Traveller population is in prison, compared to 0.13 per cent of the general UK population.
The number of Gypsy and Traveller caravans in England and Wales is recorded twice a year.
The vast majority living in caravans stay of permanent public and private sites which have planning permission and waste collection, and are subject to rent, council tax and utility bills.
A small proportion of Gypsy and Traveller caravans are classed as unauthorised and staying on land they do not own, such as roadside camps.
This includes those with no other place to stay, as well as Gypsies and Travellers who move off authorised sites to go 'travelling' during the summer.
However, not all Gypsies and Travellers 'travel', and many only do so to attend traditional cultural events like Appleby Horse Fair in Cumbria.
The community has faced discrimination and prejudice.
In some European countries, Roma are segregated from the rest of the population.
Historians estimate that around 500,000 Roma were murdered by the Nazi's during the Second World War, although some have put this figure closer to one million.
