The population of Kazakhstan in the near future may approach the mark of 17 million people. The history of the composition and number of people living in this country is interesting in that there were periods when the indigenous population of this region was much smaller than the coming nationalities.
The population of Kazakhstan has long been unchanged and from ancient times to the 18th century amounted to about 1 million people. First, there lived the tribes of the Iranian group, which at the beginning of the new millennium were replaced by tribes of the Turkic orientation. However, everything changed at the beginning of the 20th century, when during the Stolypin reforms, Russian and Ukrainian families were sent to the Kazakh territories for farming. Until now, the share of Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Poles, etc. in the north of this country is up to 40-70 percent.
In the 20th century, the famine of the early 1930s contributed to the reduction in the number of Kazakhs and other nationalities, when a number of families left Kazakhstan for China and other Soviet republics. The population of Kazakhstan in those years lost about one and a half million people. After 1935, Kazakhstan became the homeland for a number of peoples of Soviet Russia, who were forcibly deported to this region. Poles, Germans, Chechens, Ingushs were transported here. The movement took place by tens of thousands of people, which led to a reduction in the number of Kazakhs to 30% in 1959. In the 50-60s of the 20th century, the population of the republic replenished once again due to immigrants who came to develop virgin lands in this region.
After the collapse of the USSR, immigration flows intensified in the country, as a result of which the population of Kazakhstan lost about 63-64% of Germans living there, about 28-29% of Russians, 24-25% of Tatars, many Belarusians left (38% of the total number of residents). Instead, the number of Kazakhs proper (by 22%) and representatives of the Uzbek, Uyghur, Kurdish ethnic groups (by 11, 13 and 28 percent, respectively) increased.
The bulk of the population of Kazakhstan professes the Muslim faith. In second place (about 27%) is Christianity. The most common language in the country is Russian. About 95% of the population is fluent in it and about 85% speak both oral and written language. Kazakh language is best owned by Kazakhs and Uzbeks - 98.4 and 95.5 percent, respectively.
Kazakhstan, with a population of 61 places (at the end of 2012) in the list of countries around the world, is a country where the urban population is comparable in number to the rural population (9.1 and 7.6 million, respectively). The birth rate in the country is twice the mortality rate. At the end of 2011, 22-23 babies were born per 1000 people, while the residents of Kazakhstan are four times more likely to marry than to get divorced. According to statistical forecasts, by 2020, the population of this state may increase to 18.5 - 18.6 million people. The last figure is calculated taking into account external and internal migration, and the first - with the same parameters of fertility, mortality, migration, etc.
The ethnic composition of modern Kazakhstan is more than diverse - about 130 nationalities live here, of which the most numerous are (descending) Kazakhs, Russians, Ukrainians, Germans.
