Demographics of Kazakhstan

Population of Kazakhstan (in millions) from 1950–2009.
Population	17,165,239 (Jan, 2013)
Density	5.94/km2
Growth rate	13.5/1,000 population (2010 est.)
Birth rate	22.4 births/1,000 population (2010 est.)
Death rate	8.9 deaths/1,000 population (2010 est.)
Life expectancy	67.87 years
• male	62.58 years
• female	73.47 years (2009 est.)
Fertility rate	2.65 children born/woman (2010 est.)
Infant mortality rate	18.4 deaths/1,000 live births
0–14 years	21.8% (male 1,717,469/female 1,643,920)
15–64 years	70.2% (male 5,279,292/female 5,534,607)
65 and over	7.9% (male 426,494/female 797,655) (2009 est.)
At birth	0.94 male(s)/female
Under 15	1.04 male(s)/female
15–64 years	0.95 male(s)/female
65 and over	0.54 male(s)/female
Nationality	Kazakh(s), Kazakhstani
Major ethnic	Kazakh
Minor ethnic	Russian, Uzbek, Ukrainian, Uyghur, Tatar, German
Official	Kazakh, Russian
Spoken	Kazakh, Russian

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 Russia, China and Mongolia) and Kazakhstani to refer to Kazakhstan and its citizens regardless of ethnicity, but it is not uncommon to use Kazakh in both senses.

Official estimates put the population of Kazakhstan at 16,500,000 as of April 2011, of which 46% is rural and 54% urban population. 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.

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%.

The population of Kazakhstan increased steadily from 6.1 million in the 1939 census to 16.5 million in the 1989 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. Significant amounts of Russians returned to Russia. Kazakhstan underwent significant urbanization during the first 50 years of the Soviet era, as the share of rural population declined from more than 90% in the 1920s to less than 50% since the 1970s.

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, while the World Bank gave a 2002 estimate of 14,858,948. 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.