The demographics of Kazakhstan enumerate the demographic features of the population of Kazakhstan, including population growth, population density, ethnicity, education level, health, economic status, religious affiliations, and other aspects of the population. Some use the word Kazakh to refer to the Kazakh ethnic group and language (autochthonous to Kazakhstan as well as parts of China and Mongolia) and Kazakhstani to refer to Kazakhstan and its citizens regardless of ethnicity,[2][3] but it is common to use Kazakh in both senses.[4][5][6] According to the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the population of Kazakhstan in 2050 could reach about 43.5 million.[7]
Demographic trends
Official estimates put the population of Kazakhstan at 18,137,300 as of December 2017, of which 44% is rural and 56% urban population.[8] 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.
In a report released by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) in September 2021, the level of urbanization in Kazakhstan is estimated to reach 69.1% by 2050.[9]
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%. Note that a large percentage of the population are of mixed ethnicity.
The first census in Kazakhstan was conducted under Russian Imperial rule in 1897, which estimated population at round 4 million people. Following censuses showed a growth until 1939, where numbers showed a decrease to 6,081 thousand relative to the previous census done 13 years earlier, due to famines of 1922 and 1933.
But since 1939 population has steadily increased to 16.5 million in 1989, according to corresponding year 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.[10] Significant numbers of Russians returned to Russia. Kazakhstan underwent significant urbanization during the first 50 years of the Soviet era, as the share of the rural population declined from more than 90% in the 1920s to less than 50% since the 1970s.[11] The fertility rate declined to amongst the lower rates in the world in 1999 and increased to again amongst the higher rates in the world in 2021.
Graphs are temporarily unavailable due to technical issues.
Graphs are temporarily unavailable due to technical issues.
Graphs are temporarily unavailable due to technical issues.
Population of Kazakhstan 1897–2018
Year (January)
Population (thousands)
Rural, %
Urban, %
Source
1897
4,000
n/a
n/a
census
1926
6,198
n/a
n/a
census
1939
6,081
72
28
census
1959
9,295
56
44
census
1970
13,001
50
50
census
1979
14,685
46
54
census
1989
16,537
43
57
census
1999
14,953
43
57
census
2009
15,982
46
54
census
2023
20,137
39
61
estimate
Data sources: Population 1897 from Russian Empire Census. Population 1926 from First All-Union Census of the Soviet Union. Population 1939–1999 from demoscope.ru,[10] 2002–2008 from Kazakhstan Statistical Agency web site.[12] Rural/urban shares 1939–1993 from statistical yearbooks, print editions,[11] 2002–2008 from Kazakhstan Statistical Agency web site.[12] 2009–2014 from Kazakhstan Statistical Agency web site.[13]
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,[14] while the World Bank gave a 2002 estimate of 14,858,948.[15] 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.
The population of Kazakhstan by 2030 may be 24.7 million and in 2050 about 43 million, at the end of the century the population of the country may be one of the highest, namely more than 80 million.
Structure of the population (01.01.2021) (Estimates):[22]
Age Group
Male
Female
Total
%
Total
9 160 399
9 719 153
18 879 552
100
0–15
2 980 297
2 809 236
5 789 533
30.7
16–62(59)
5 524 137
5 485 235
11 009 372
58.3
63(60)+
655 965
1 424 682
2 080 647
11.0
The age group under 15 is considered below the working age, while the age group over 63(60) is above the working age (63 years for men, 60 for women).
Population Estimates by Sex and Age Group (01.VII.2020):[23]
Age Group
Male
Female
Total
%
Total
9 097 267
9 658 399
18 755 666
100
0–4
1 022 237
958 277
1 980 514
10.56
5–9
965 866
913 058
1 878 924
10.02
10–14
816 101
772 157
1 588 257
8.47
15–19
615 837
585 452
1 201 288
6.40
20–24
582 579
559 084
1 141 663
6.09
25–29
730 413
717 630
1 448 042
7.72
30–34
792 268
815 199
1 607 467
8.57
35–39
667 026
685 087
1 352 112
7.21
40–44
577 247
609 053
1 186 299
6.33
45–49
522 372
572 306
1 094 678
5.84
50–54
469 831
528 745
998 576
5.32
55–59
457 142
543 339
1 000 481
5.22
60–64
356 326
465 488
821 814
4.38
65–69
234 577
352 991
587 568
3.13
70–74
138 407
241 194
379 601
2.02
75–79
66 167
135 243
201 410
1.07
80–84
58 715
141 600
200 314
1.07
85–89
15 891
43 412
59 303
0.32
90–94
5 702
15 593
21 295
0.11
95–99
1 773
2 862
4 635
0.02
100+
795
635
1 430
0.01
Age group
Male
Female
Total
Percent
0–14
2 804 204
2 643 492
5 447 696
29.05
15–64
5 771 036
6 081 377
11 852 413
63.19
65+
522 027
933 530
1 455 557
7.76
Total fertility rate
Total Fertility Rate of Kazakhstan by region (2021)
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.[24][25][26]
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.[27]
Kazakhstan's dominant ethnic group, the Kazakhs, traces its origins to the 15th century, when after the disintegration of Golden Horde, numbers of Turkic and Turco-Mongol tribes united to establish the Kazakh Khanate. With a cohesive culture and national identity, they constituted an absolute majority on the land until colonization by the Russian empire.
Russian advances 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 on 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.[31][32]
The first collective farms were formed 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 famines, claiming the lives of an estimated 40% of ethnic Kazakhs (1.5 million), between 1930 and 1933.[33] Hundreds of thousands also fled to China, Iran and Afghanistan. The famine made Kazakhs a minority of the population of Kazakhstan, and only after the republic gained independence in 1991 did Kazakhs have a slim demographic majority within Kazakhstan.[31]
Demographics did shift in the 1950s and 1960s, when, as part of Nikita Khrushchev's Virgin Lands Campaign, hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens relocated to the Kazakh steppes in order to farm. As recognized in the 1959 census, the Kazaks became the second-largest ethnic group in Kazakhstan for the first time in recorded history, comprising just 30% of the total population of Kazakhstan. Russians numbered 42.7%.[34]
Since the Soviet Union's collapse, the numbers of members of European ethnic groups has been falling and Asian groups have been continuously rising. According to the 2021 census, the ethnic composition of Kazakhstan was approximately: 70.4% Kazakh, 15.5% Russian, 3.2% Uzbek, 2.0% Ukrainian, 1.5% Uyghur, 1.1% Tatar, 1.2% German, and <1% Korean, Turkish, Azerbaijani, Belarusian, Dungan, Kurdish, Tajik, Polish, Kyrgyz, Chechen.[35]
Population of Kazakhstan according to ethnic group 1897–1999
^ abOlcott, M. B. (1995). The Kazakhs. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.
^Pierce, A. R. (1960) Russian Central Asia, 1867–1917: A study in colonial rule. Berkeley: University of California Press.
^Pianciola, N. (2001). The collectivization famine in Kazakhstan, 1931–1933. Harvard Ukrainian Studies, 25(3/4), 237–251. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/41036834
^Zardykhan, Z. (2004). Russians in Kazakhstan and demographic change: Imperial legacy and the Kazakh way of nation building. Asian Ethnicity, 5(1), 61–79.
Rasuly-Paleczek, Gabriele; Katschnig, Julia (2005), Central Asia on Display: Proceedings of the VIIth Conference of the European Society for Central Asian Studies, LIT Verlag Münster, ISBN978-3-8258-8309-6.
-1,900 (-2.2%)
-5,500 (-14.4%)
+3,400 (+5.9%)
