Demographics of Bhutan

This article is about the demographic features of the population of Bhutan, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.

The Royal Government of Bhutan listed the country's population as 752,700 in 2003.

One explanation for this discrepancy is that the higher CIA numbers ultimately trace back to an inflated population number the Bhutanese government supplied to the United Nations in the early 1970s in order to gain entry into that body (the UN reportedly had a cutoff population of one million at that time). According to this theory the CIA population experts have retained this original inflated number year after year while adjusting it each year for normal population growth.

An alternative theory is that the western and central districts of the country wish to underestimate the populations of the southern and eastern districts in order to maintain their historical dominance over those districts. This is the claim made by some Bhutanese refugee groups. Certainly the government numbers do not include people, that were living in the refugee camps in Nepal and other persons forced out of Bhutan, which total approximately 125,000, majority of whom have now resettled in the USA.

The Bhutanese numbers can be reconstructed from their 9th Five Year Plan documents, which lists the exact number of households in each gewog. If the Bhutanese refugee advocate groups are correct, a spot check of a southern gewog should show a massive under-reporting of population.

The CIA World Fact book number has since been adjusted with a note of former inconstencies, and attributes the difference to the government not including the "first modern census of Bhutan, conducted in 2005". It should also be noted that in the 1970s Bhutan was one of the most isolated countries in the world and nobody knew how many people lived there since no census had ever been taken.

The following demographic statistics are from the CIA World Factbook, unless otherwise indicated.

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