Demographics of Kazakhstan

Demographic trends

Official estimates put the population of Kazakhstan at 16,500,000 as of April 2011, of which 46% is rural and 54% urban population. The 2009 population estimate is 6.8% higher than the population reported in the last census from January 1999 (slightly less than 15 million). These estimates have been confirmed by the 2009 population census, and this means that the decline in population that began after 1989 has been arrested and reversed.

The proportion of men makes up 48.3%, the proportion of women 51.7%. The proportion of Kazakhs makes up 63.6%, Russians 23.7%, Uzbeks 2.9%, Ukrainians 2.1%, Uygur 1.4%, Tatars 1.3%, Germans 1.1%, others 3.9%.

The population of Kazakhstan increased steadily from 6.1 million in the 1939 census to 16.5 million in the 1989 census. Official estimates indicate that the population continued to increase after 1989, peaking out at 17 million in 1993 and then declining to 15 million in the 1999 census. The downward trend continued through 2002, when the estimated population bottomed out at 14.9 million, and then resumed its growth. Significant amounts of Russians returned to Russia. Kazakhstan underwent significant urbanization during the first 50 years of the Soviet era, as the share of rural population declined from more than 90% in the 1920s to less than 50% since the 1970s.

Population of Kazakhstan 1939–2014

Data sources: Population 1939-1999 from demoscope.ru, 2002-2008 from Kazakhstan Statistical Agency web site. Rural/urban shares 1939-1993 from statistical yearbooks, print editions, 2002-2008 from Kazakhstan Statistical Agency web site. 2009-2014 from Kazakhstan Statistical Agency web site.

As of 2003, there were discrepancies between Western sources regarding the population of Kazakhstan. United States government sources, including the CIA World Fact Book and the US Census Bureau International Data Base, listed the population as 15,340,533, while the World Bank gave a 2002 estimate of 14,858,948. This discrepancy was presumably due to difficulties in measurement caused by the large migratory population in Kazakhstan, emigration, and low population density - only about 5.5 persons per km² in an area the size of Western Europe.

¹ Births and deaths until 1979 are estimates.

Structure of the population

Structure of the population (01.07.2008) (Estimates) :

Total fertility rate

Total fertility rate by regions of Kazakhstan: Mangystau - 3.80, South Kazakhstan - 3.71, Kyzylorda - 3.42, Atyrau - 3.29, Jambyl - 3.20, Aqtobe - 2.70, Almaty (province) - 2.65, Almaty (city) - 2.65, City of Astana - 2.44, West Kazakhstan - 2.29, Aqmola - 2.19, East Kazakhstan - 2.07, Qaragandy - 2.04, Pavlodar - 1.98, North Kazakhstan - 1.72, Qostanay - 1.70, Republic of Kazakhstan - 2.65. Thus it can be seen that fertility rate is higher in more traditionalist and religious south and west, and lower in the north and east, where the percentage of Slavic and German population is still relatively high.

According to the Kazakhstan Demographic and Health Survey in 1999, the TFR for Kazakhs was 2.5 and that for Russians was 1.38. TFR in 1989 for Kazakhs & Russians were 3.58 and 2.24 respectively.

History of ethnic composition

Kazakhstan's dominant ethnic group Kazakhs, traces its origin to 15th century, when a number of Turkic and some Mongol tribes united to establish the Kazakh Khanate. With cohesive culture and national identity, they constituted absolute majority on the land until Russian colonization.
Russian advancement into the territory of Kazakhstan began in the late 18th century, when the Kazakhs nominally accepted Russian rule in exchange for protection against repeated attacks by the western Mongolian Kalmyks. In the 1890s, Russian peasants began to settle the fertile lands of northern Kazakhstan, causing many Kazakhs to move eastwards into Chinese territory in search of new grazing grounds. The 1906 completion of the Trans-Aral Railway between Orenburg and Tashkent further facilitated Russian colonization. The first collectivized farms opened in Kazakhstan in 1921, populated primarily by Russians and Soviet deportees. In 1930, as part of the first Five Year Plan, the Kazakh Central Committee decreed the sedentarization of nomads and their incorporation into collectivized farms. This movement resulted in devastating famine, claiming the lives of an estimated 40% of ethnic Kazakhs (1.5 million), between 1930-33. Hundreds of thousands also fled to China, Iran and Afghanistan. The famine rendered Kazakhs a minority within Kazakhstan, and only after the republic gained independence in 1991 did Kazakhs recover a slim demographic majority within Kazakhstan.

Demographics would continue to shift in the 1950-1960s, wherein as part of Nikita Kruschev's Virgin Lands Campaign, hundreds of thousands of Soviet deportees were relocated to the Kazakh steppes in order to farm. As recognized in the 1959 census, the Kazaks became a minority in for the first time in history, composing just 30% of the total population of Kazakhstan. Russians numbered 42.7%.

According to the 2009 census, the ethnic composition of Kazakhstan is approximately: 63.1% Kazakh, 23.7% Russian, 2.9% Uzbek, 2.1% Ukrainian, 1.4% Uyghur, 1.3% Tatar, 1.1% German, 1% Kyrgyz, and <1% Korean, Turkish, Azerbaijani, Belarusian, Dungan, Kurd, Tajik, Pole, Chechen.