Demographics of Russia

The demographics of Russia is about the demographic features of the population of the Russian Federation, including population growth, population density, ethnic composition, education level, health, economic status and other aspects.

According to an official estimate for 1 October 2012, the population of Russia was 143,300,000. The population hit a historic peak at 148,689,000 in 1991, just before the breakup of the Soviet Union, but then began a decade-long decline, falling at a rate of about 0.5% per year due to declining birth rates, rising death rates and emigration. However, the decline began to slow considerably in recent years, and in 2009 Russia recorded a yearly population spike for the first time in 15 years, with a growth rate of 23,300.

In 2011, the population of Russia grew by 191,000 people, and reached a total of more than 143 million.

In the first nine months of 2012, Russia's population increased by 208,100 people.

According to the 2010 census, ethnic Russians make up 81% of the total population, while six other ethnicities have a population exceeding 1 million – Tatars (3.9%), Ukrainians (1.4%), Bashkir (1.1%), Chuvash (1%), Chechens (1%) and Armenians (0.9%). In total, 160 different ethnic groups and indigenous peoples live within the Russian Federation's borders.

Almost six million people (about 4% of the overall population) did not declare any ethnic origin in the 2010 census, compared to about 1 million in the 2002 Census. This is due to the fact that those people were counted from administrative databases and not directly, and were therefore unable to state their ethnicity. Therefore, the percentages mentioned above are taken from the total population that declared their ethnicity, given that the non-declared remainder is thought to have an ethnic composition similar to the declared segment.

Russia's population density is 8.4 people per square kilometre (22 per square mile), making it one of the most sparsely populated countries in the world. The population is most dense in the European part of the country, centering around Moscow and Saint Petersburg. 74% of the population is urban.