Tajik children

Tajikistan's main ethnic group are the Tajiks, with minorities such as the Uzbeks and Kyrgyz, and a small Russian minority. Because not everyone in Tajikistan is an ethnic Tajik, the non-Tajik citizens of the country are referred to as Tajikistani. The official nationality of any person from Tajikistan is a Tajikistani, while the ethnic Tajik majority simply call themselves Tajik.

Contemporary Tajiks are an Iranian people. In particular, they are descended from ancient Eastern Iranian peoples of Central Asia, such as the Soghdians and the Bactrians, with an admixture of Western Iranian Persians as well as non-Iranian peoples.^[1]

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. Although to some degree intermixed, the nomads are considered to be Turko-Mongol in origin and the sedentary people of Iranian descent, the Tajiks. The distinction became less evident with gradual sedentarization of former Asian Turko-Mongol tribes and gradual intermixing of Asian and Iranian Tajiks who borrowed from both languages. By the late nineteenth century, the Tajik and Uzbek peoples, who had lived in proximity for centuries and often used each other's languages, did not perceive themselves as two distinct nationalities. The modern labels were imposed artificially when Central Asia was divided into five Soviet republics in the 1920s.^[1] With the formation of five Central Asian republics under the USSR, many Tajiks were forced to sign themselves as Uzbek to avoid persecution in current Uzbekistan. Thus almost 10 million Tajiks were forcefully Uzbekisized when Turkization promoted by Pan-Turkists failed. The majority of Tajiks remained outside of their historic lands; that is, almost 10 million in Uzbekistan , 7 million in Afghanistan , 2 million in Iran, and 1 million in Russia.

Historically, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan were also home to Bukharian Jews, who trace their ancestry to the Lost Tribes of Israel taken captive by the Babylonians in the 7th century BC, but almost no Bukharian Jews are left in Tajikistan.

A Tajik Woman with gold teeth

Tajikistan: Population and rural population 1958-2005 (millions). State Statistical Committee, Dushanbe, yearbooks from various years.

CIA World Factbook demographic statistics

Data from ''CIA factbook''

Population

7,211,884 (July 2008 est.)

Age structure

0-14 years: 39.8% (male 1,376,244; female 1,353,108)
15-64 years: 55.5% (male 1,896,509; female 1,915,334)
65 years and over: 4.7% (male 140,993; female 181,564) (2003 est.)

Population growth rate

1.895% (2007 est.)

Birth rate

27.33 births/1,000 population (2007 est.)

Death rate

7.05 deaths/1,000 population (2007 est.)

Net migration rate

Sex ratio

at birth: 1.05 male(s)/female
under 15 years: 1.02 male(s)/female
15-64 years: 0.99 male(s)/female
65 years and over: 0.78 male(s)/female
total population: 0.99 male(s)/female (2003 est.)

Infant mortality rate

total: 113.43 deaths/1,000 live births
female: 99.63 deaths/1,000 live births (2003 est.)
male: 126.58 deaths/1,000 live births

Life expectancy at birth

total population: 64.37 years
male: 61.39 years
female: 67.5 years (2003 est.)

Total fertility rate

4.17 children born/woman (2003 est.)

Education

Education is required through high school (12 years of schooling) but completion rate is under 90%;
female students usually stop after 10 years of schooling.

Literacy

definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 99.4%
male: 99.6%
female: 99.1% (2003 est.)

Ethnic groups

Young Tajik women

Old Tajik woman (2007).

A religious scholar from Tajikistan (2005).

Ethic makeup according to the population censuses from 1926 to 2000 (in thousands)^[2]
Note: The category Tajiks also includes approximately 135,000 Pamiris (of which 65% are Shughnis, 13% Rushanis, 12% Wakhis, 5% Bartangis, 3% Yazgulyamis, 1.5% Khufis, and 0.8% Ishkashimis) and 5,000 Yagnobis. Tajiks excluding the Pamiri peoples and the yagnobis thus account for 77.6% of the population according to the 2000 census.

Religions

Islam 90% - 97% (mostly Sunni Islam and followed by Shi'a Islam), Christianity 2.5% (mostly Orthodox Christian), Others 0.5% (including Zoroastrian, Bahá'í, Buddhist, Hare Krishna, Jews, etc) ^[3][4][5]

Languages

Tajiki (a variety of Persian language) (official),^[6] Russian (widely used in government and business), Shughni (spoken in area near Khorog in Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Province).

References

fr:Démographie du Tadjikistan lt:Tad?ikijos demografija pt:Demografia do Tadjiquistão

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