Ethnic Groups
According to the 2009 census there are two dominant ethnical groups in Kazakhstan, they are ethnic Kazakhs (63.1%) and ethnic Russians (23.7%) with a wide array of other groups represented, including Ukrainians, Uzbeks, Germans, Chechens, Koreans, and Uyghurs - that is, virtually any group that has ever come under the Russian sphere of influence. This diverse demography is due to the country's central location and its historical use by Russia as a place to send colonists, dissidents, and minority groups from its other frontiers - one can almost not understand Kazakhstan without understanding population transfer in the Soviet Union. From the 1930s until the 1950s, both Russian opposition (and such Russians "accused" of being part of the opposition) and certain minorities (esp. Volga Germans, Poles, Ukrainians, Crimean Tatars, Kalmyks) had been interned in labor camps often merely due to their heritage or beliefs, mostly on collective orders by Joseph Stalin. This makes Kazakhstan one of the few places on Earth where normally-disparate Germanic, Indo-Iranian, Koreans, Chechen, and Turkic groups live together in a rural setting and not as a result of modern immigration. Most of the population speaks Russian; only half of ethnic Kazakhs speak Kazakh fluently, although it is enjoying a renaissance. Both Kazakh and Russian languages have official status.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, significant part of Russian population emigrated to Russia. The German population of Kazakhstan proceeded to emigrate en masse during the 1990s, as Germany is willing to repatriate them. Also much of the smaller Greek minority took the chance to repatriate to Greece. Some groups have fewer good options for emigration but because of the economic situation are also leaving at rates comparable to the rest of the former Eastern Bloc.
| Ethnic group |
census 19261 | census 19392 | census 19593 | census 19704 | census 19795 | census 19896 | census 19997 | census 20097 | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number | % | Number | % | Number | % | Number | % | Number | % | Number | % | Number | % | Number | % | |||
| Kazakhs | 3,627,612 | 58.5 | 2,327,625 | 37.8 | 2,794,966 | 30.0 | 4,161,164 | 32.4 | 5,289,349 | 36.0 | 6,534,616 | 39.7 | 8,011,452 | 53.5 | 10,096,763 | 63.1 | ||
| Russians | 1,275,055 | 20.6 | 2,458,687 | 40.0 | 3,974,229 | 42.7 | 5,499,826 | 42.8 | 5,991,205 | 40.8 | 6,227,549 | 37.8 | 4,480,675 | 29.9 | 3,793,764 | 23.7 | ||
| Uzbeks | 129,407 | 2.1 | 120,655 | 2.0 | 136,570 | 1.5 | 207,514 | 1.6 | 263,295 | 1.8 | 332,017 | 2.0 | 370,765 | 2.5 | 456,997 | 2.9 | ||
| Ukrainians | 860,201 | 13.9 | 658,319 | 10.7 | 762,131 | 8.2 | 930,158 | 7.2 | 897,964 | 6.1 | 896,240 | 5.4 | 547,065 | 3.7 | 333,031 | 2.1 | ||
| Uygurs | 11,631 | 0.2 | 35,409 | 0.6 | 59,840 | 0.6 | 120,784 | 0.9 | 147,943 | 1.0 | 185,301 | 1.1 | 210,377 | 1.4 | 224,713 | 1.4 | ||
| Tatars | 79,758 | 1.3 | 108,127 | 1.8 | 191,802 | 2.1 | 281,849 | 2.2 | 312,626 | 2.1 | 327,982 | 2.0 | 249,052 | 1.7 | 204,229 | 1.3 | ||
| Germans | 51,094 | 0.8 | 92,571 | 1.5 | 659,800 | 7.1 | 839,649 | 6.5 | 900,207 | 6.1 | 957,518 | 5.8 | 353,462 | 2.4 | 178,409 | 1.1 | ||
| Koreans | 42 | 0.0 | 96,453 | 1.6 | 74,019 | 0.8 | 78,078 | 0.6 | 91,984 | 0.6 | 103,315 | 0.6 | 99,944 | 0.7 | 100,385 | 0.6 | ||
| Turks | 46 | 0.0 | 523 | 0.0 | 9,916 | 0.1 | 18,397 | 0.1 | 25,820 | 0.2 | 49,567 | 0.3 | 75,950 | 0.5 | 97,015 | 0.6 | ||
| Azeris | 20 | 0.0 | 12,996 | 0.2 | 38,362 | 0.4 | 56,166 | 0.4 | 73,345 | 0.5 | 90,083 | 0.5 | 78,325 | 0.5 | 85,292 | 0.5 | ||
| Belorussians | 25,584 | 0.4 | 31,614 | 0.5 | 107,463 | 1.2 | 197,592 | 1.5 | 181,491 | 1.2 | 182,601 | 1.1 | 111,924 | 0.7 | 66,476 | 0.4 | ||
| Dungans | 8,455 | 0.1 | 7,415 | 0.1 | 9,980 | 0.1 | 17,283 | 0.1 | 22,491 | 0.2 | 30,165 | 0.2 | 36,945 | 0.2 | 51,944 | 0.3 | ||
| Kurds | 2,387 | 0.0 | 6,109 | 0.1 | 12,299 | 0.1 | 17,692 | 0.1 | 25,425 | 0.2 | 32,764 | 0.2 | 38,325 | 0.2 | ||||
| Tajiks | 7,599 | 0.1 | 11,229 | 0.2 | 8,075 | 0.1 | 7,166 | 0.1 | 19,293 | 0.1 | 25,514 | 0.2 | 25,673 | 0.2 | 36,277 | 0.2 | ||
| Poles | 3,742 | 0.1 | 54,809 | 0.9 | 53,102 | 0.6 | 61,355 | 0.5 | 61,136 | 0.4 | 59,956 | 0.4 | 47,302 | 0.3 | 34,057 | 0.2 | ||
| Chechens | 3 | 0.0 | 2,639 | 0.0 | 130,232 | 1.4 | 34,492 | 0.3 | 38,256 | 0.3 | 49,507 | 0.3 | 31,802 | 0.2 | 31,431 | 0.2 | ||
| Kyrgyz | 10,200 | 0.2 | 5,033 | 0.1 | 6,810 | 0.1 | 9,474 | 0.1 | 9,352 | 0.1 | 14,112 | 0.1 | 10,925 | 0.1 | 23,274 | 0.1 | ||
| Others | 108,016 | 1.7 | 124,611 | 2.0 | 286,441 | 3.1 | 315,347 | 2.5 | 340,834 | 2.3 | 372,996 | 2.3 | 206,879 | 1.4 | 157,215 | 1.0 | ||
| Total | 6,198,465 | 6,151,102 | 9,309,847 | 12,848,573 | 14,684,283 | 16,464,464 | 14,981,281 | 16,009,597 | ||||||||||
Read more about this topic: Demographics Of Kazakhstan
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