Tajikistan People, Population, Religion and Nationality

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Tajikistan People


Browse the information below for demographic information on Tajikistan, including population, religion, nationality and more. If you do not find the Tajikistan information you need on the people page, check out our complete listing on the Tajikistan Country Page.

  • Tajikistan Geography
  • Tajikistan Government
  • Tajikistan Economy
  • Tajikistan History

    People
    Nationality: Tajikistani.
    Population (2003 est.): 6.25 million .
    Population growth rate (2003 est.): 2.1%.
    Ethnic groups: Tajik 67%, Uzbek 23%, Russian 3.5%, other 6.5%.
    Religion: Sunni Muslim 80%, Shi'a (Ismaili) Muslim 5%, other 15%.
    Language: Tajik (sole official language as of 1994), Russian widely used in government and business, 77% of the country, however, is rural and they speak mostly Tajik.
    Education: Literacy (according to Tajikistan official statistics, 2000)--99%. The Tajik education system has suffered greatly since independence.
    Health: Life expectancy--65.2 years men; 67.38 years women. Infant mortality rate--82.4 deaths/1,000 live births (2000 est.).
    Work force (2000 est.): 3.187 million.

    People of Tajikistan
    Contemporary Tajiks are the descendants of ancient Eastern Iranian inhabitants of Central Asia, in particular the Soghdians and the Bactrians, and possibly other groups, with an admixture of western Iranian Persians and non-Iranian peoples, Mongols, and Turkic peoples, and reports of Alexander the Great's army. Until the 20th century, people in the region used two types of distinction to identify themselves: way of life--either nomadic or sedentary--and place of residence. By the late 19th century, the Tajik and Uzbek peoples, who lived in proximity for centuries and often used--and continue to use--each other's languages, did not perceive themselves as two distinct nationalities. The division of Central Asia into five Soviet Republics in the 1920s imposed artificial labels on a region in which many different peoples lived intermixed.

    source: http://www.state.gov

  • Tajikistan Geography
  • Tajikistan Government
  • Tajikistan Economy
  • Tajikistan History