Population

Contents

• Census results 2000
• Population growth
• Ethnicity

Census results 2000

Tajikistan's first census as an independent nation was taken in January 2000. The last census, in 1989, was under the Soviet regime. According to the results of the General Census of the Population of Tajikistan, published by the State Agency for Statistics, the population of the republic stands at 6,105,300. This exceeds the count of the 1989 census by one million.

Dushanbe, the capital of the country, has a population of 536,100. This is a decrease of 54,000, mostly accounted for by the exodus of ethnic Russians during the 1992-97 civil war.

The largest proportion of the population (2,141,100) lives in the Khatlon Region. The population of the northern Leninabad Region is 1,895,500. The autonomous region of Mountainous Badakhshan has a population of 203,500.

Population growth

The rate of growth of population in Tajikistan since independence was 19.5%, or 996,700 people. In the 1970s and 1980s, the Tajik SSR had the highest birthrate of any Soviet republic. This does not appear to have changed. The dramatic rise in population over the last decade, despite the outmigration of an estimated half a million people, indicates that Tajikistan has one of the highest rates of population growth in the world.

Ethnicity

The CIA World Factbook estimates that the population is 64.9% Tajik, 25% Uzbek, 3.5% Russian, and 6.6% other.

Map of major ethnic groups in Tajikistan, 1992 (211K JPEG)