Georgia (country) - Demographics

Demographics

Like most native Caucasian peoples, the Georgians do not fit into any of the main ethnic categories of Europe or Asia. The Georgian language, the most pervasive of the Kartvelian languages, is neither Indo-European, Turkic nor Semitic. The present day Georgian or Kartvelian nation is thought to have resulted from the fusion of aboriginal, autochthonous inhabitants with immigrants who infiltrated into South Caucasus from the direction of Anatolia in remote antiquity. The ancient Jewish chronicle by Josephus mentions Georgians as Iberes who were also called Thobel Tubal.

Ethnic Georgians form about 84% of Georgia's current population of 4,661,473 (July 2006 est.). Other ethnic groups include Abkhazians, Armenians, Azeris, Belorusians, Bulgarians, Estonians, Germans, Greeks, Jews, Moldovans, Ossetians, Poles, Russians, Turks and Ukrainians. Notably, Georgia's Jewish community is one of the oldest Jewish communities in the world. Georgia also exhibits significant linguistic diversity. Within the Kartvelian family, Georgian, Laz, Megrelian, and Svan are spoken. The official languages of Georgia are Georgian and also Abkhaz within the autonomous region of Abkhazia. Georgian, the country's official language, is a primary language of approximately 71% of the population, with 9% speaking Russian, 7% Armenian, 6% Azeri, and 7% other languages.

In the early 1990s, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, violent separatist conflicts broke out in the autonomous regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Many Ossetians living in Georgia left the country, mainly to Russia's North Ossetia. On the other hand, more than 150,000 Georgians left Abkhazia after the breakout of hostilities in 1993. Of the Meskhetian Turks who were forcibly relocated in 1944 only a tiny fraction returned to Georgia as of 2008.

The 1989 census recorded 341,000 ethnic Russians, or 6.3% of the population, 52,000 Ukrainians and 100,000 Greeks in Georgia. Since 1990, 1.5 million Georgian nationals have left. At least one million immigrants from Georgia legally or illegally reside in Russia. Georgia's net migration rate is −4.54, excluding Georgian nationals who live abroad. Georgia has nonetheless been inhabited by immigrants from all over the world throughout its independence. According to 2006 statistics, Georgia gets most of its immigrants from Turkey and China.

Today 83.9% of the population practices Eastern Orthodox Christianity, with majority of these adhering to the national Georgian Orthodox Church. Religious minorities include Muslims (9.9%), Armenian Apostolic (3.9%), and Roman Catholic (0.8%). 0.8% of those recorded in the 2002 census declared themselves to be adherents of other religions and 0.7% declared no religion at all.