Demographics
The South Kazakhstan Province is the most densely populated of Kazakhstan's many regions. This derives from the oblast's gentler climate, better irrigation infrastructure, and proximity to historical population centers . SKO is also the fastest growing of Kazakhstan's Province, due to two main factors. One is the birthrate among traditional Kazakh and Uzbek families, where families of five to eight children are commonplace. The other is the exodus of cheap migrant labor from northern Uzbekistan. These migrant workers sometimes become full-fledged immigrants, and if they are ethnic Kazakhs this process is easily green-lighted through local governments for an (unacknowledged and under-the-table) fee.
As such, South Kazakhstan Province is the only province with a demographic breakdown where ethnic Russians are not in the first or second most populous categories. Census results are old and made using Soviet methods that served propaganda over accuracy, but they still point to Kazakhs being the most populous, closely followed by Uzbeks, with Russians bringing in a distant third.
The population of Southern Kazakhstan, despite obvious numerical prevalence of Kazakhs (which has considerably amplified from the beginning 1990 and now the share of Kazakhs in the population makes an order of 72%), differs a considerable ethnolanguage variety. So in the area population it is traditionally wide (about 18% of all population) the Uzbeks making a considerable part of the population of some cities and areas of area are presented (to Sauries, Turkestan, Aksukent, Ikan), live Russian (basically in the city of Shymkent though their share was considerably reduced for last 20 years from more than 23% in 1980 to nearby 6% now), Tadjiks, Koreans, Kurds live also. Main languages are Kazakh, Russian (including as means of international dialogue) and Uzbek.
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