Demography of Afghanistan

The population of Afghanistan is around 29,121,286 as of the year 2010, which may or may not include the roughly 3 million Afghan refugees living outside the country. It is a multi-ethnic and multi-lingual society, reflecting its location astride historic trade and invasion routes between Western Asia, Central Asia, and Southern Asia. The majority of Afghanistan's population consists of the Iranian people, notably the Pashtuns and Tajiks. The Pashtuns are the largest ethnic group followed by Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks, Aimak, Turkmen, Baluch and others.

Pashto and Dari (Persian) are the two official languages of the country. Persian is spoken by about half of the population and serves as a lingua franca for the majority. Pashto is spoken widely in the south, east and south west of the country as well as in neighboring western Pakistan. Uzbek and Turkmen are spoken in parts of the north. Smaller groups throughout the country also speak more than 30 other languages and numerous dialects.

Islam is the religion of 99.7% of Afghanistan. An estimated 80% of the population practice Sunni Islam, following the Hanafi school of jurisprudence; 19% is Shi'a and about 1% or less follow other religions. Despite attempts during the 1980s to secularize Afghan society, Islamic practices pervade all aspects of life. In fact, Islam served as the principal basis for expressing opposition to the Soviet invasion. Likewise, Islamic religious tradition and codes, together with traditional practices, provide the principal means of controlling personal conduct and settling legal disputes. Excluding urban populations in the principal cities, most Afghans are organized into tribal and other kinship-based groups, which follow their own traditional customs: for instance Pashtunwali.

The term "Afghan", historically synonymous with "Pashtun", is today the national identity of Afghanistan. Despite being of various ethnicities, in a research poll that was conducted in Afghanistan in 2009, 72% of the population labeled their identity as Afghan first, before ethnicity.

The modern Afghan national identity is derived from the rise of the Pashtun Hotaki and Durrani dynasties, especially with the establishment of the Durrani Empire (Afghan Empire) in the early-18th century. From 1747 until 1826, Ahmad Shah Durrani and his descendants held the monarchy in direct session. They were the first rulers of a Pashtun dominated sovereign state and were later replaced by the Pashtun Barakzai dynasty.

While national culture of Afghanistan is not uniform, at the same time, the various ethnic groups have no clear boundaries between each other and there is much overlap.Additionally, ethnic groups are not racially homogenous and most are not native.

Since Afghan history is fraught with regional cleavages any notion of an Afghan nation state is absent until the rise of the Hotakis and Durranis in the early-1700s. Important figures from the past such as Avicenna and Rumi, who were of ethnic Tajik identity, are generally not identified as ethnic Afghans, at least according to academics, while they are generally included within the context of the collective history of the modern nation-state in the geographic sense.

Pashtuns

Pashtuns (also known as Pakhtuns or ethnic Afghans) reside mainly in the eastern, southern and southwestern areas of Afghanistan but important colonies have also settled in some northern and northwestern parts as a result of relocation. An even larger number of Pashtuns live in neighboring Pakistan where they are the second major ethnic group and exert considerable influence. Smaller groups of Pashtuns are also found in the eastern section of Iran.

There are many conflicting theories about the origin of the Pashtun people, both among historians and the Pashtun themselves. A variety of ancient groups with eponyms similar to Pukhtun have been hypothesized as possible ancestors of modern Pashtuns. The Greek historian Herodotus mentioned a people called Pactyans, living in the Achaemenid's Arachosia Satrap as early as the 1st millennium BC. Some believe that Afghan is an adaptation of the Prakrit ethnonym Avagānā, attested in the 6th century CE. According to several scholars such as V. Minorsky, W.K. Frazier Tyler and M.C. Gillet, the name "Afghan" first appears in the 982 CE Hudud-al-Alam work. Al-Biruni referred to the Afghans in the 11th century as various tribes living on the western frontier mountains of Ancient India and Persia, which would be the Sulaiman Mountains. According to other sources, some of these Pashtuns may be the Lost tribes of Israel that never returned and were converted to Islam during the Arab Empire. Thus, it is believed that the Pashtuns emerged from the area around the Sulaiman Mountains, and expanded to other places over time. Between the 13th and 16th century some Pashtun tribes migrated from what is now Afghanistan to the Indian subcontinent, forming kingdoms within the Delhi Sultanate.

The Afghan identity began to develop as Pashtun identity in and around the early 18th century, under the rule of Ahmad Shah Durrani who united all the Pashtun tribes and formed the Afghan Empire. Another boost took place under the rule of Abdur Rahman Khan who with British support further centralized the government. Pashtuns are the traditional rulers of Afghanistan since the rise of the Hotaki dynasty in 1709 or more specifically when the Durrani Empire was created in 1747. The current Karzai administration, which is led by Hamid Karzai, is dominated by Pashtun ministers.

The Persian-speaking Tajiks are closely related to the Persians of Iran. Sub-groups of the Tajiks include the Farsiwan and the Qizilbash. The major difference between them is that they are generally of the Shia sect while the majority of Tajiks practice Sunni Islam. Just like the Pashtuns, the history of Tajiks is also unconfirmed; some scholars believe that they are natives of the land since the times when the region was recognized as Ariana. The area was ruled by ancient Persian emperors beyond the modern boundaries from first hand, but have lost power as the dominant group in the region due to other invading powers, so they were only able to rule and at the same time legitimize their rule as second- or even as immediate sub-rulers with strong influence on the foreigners - with the exception of the short 10-month rule of Habibullah Kalakani in 1929.

Tajiks are the major ethnic group in Tajikistan, which borders Afghanistan in the north. Most Tajiks live in cities and towns, and often they are found working in government ministries and public services. They are also known for being bureaucrats, doctors, teachers, professors, merchants or traders, and so on. Some of them living in rural regions engage in farming and herding. The ethnic Tajiks are the closest rivals to Pashtuns for political power and prestige in Afghanistan.

Hazaras

The Hazaras are a Persian-speaking people who reside mainly in the Hazarajat region. The Hazara seem to have partial Mongolian origins with some admixture from surrounding indigenous groups. Linguistically the Hazara speak a dialect of Persian, known as Hazaragi, and sometimes their variant is interspersed with Altaic words. It is commonly believed by many Afghans that the Hazara are descendants of Genghis Khan's army, which marched into the area during the 12th century. Proponents of this view hold that many of the Mongol soldiers and their family members settled in the area and remained there after the Mongol empire dissolved in the 13th century, converting to Islam and adopting local customs. Unlike most Afghans the Hazara are Shia, which has often set them apart from their neighbors. There are sizable Hazara communities in Pakistan particularly in the city of Quetta, and in Iran among the Afghan refugees.

The Uzbeks are the main Turkic people of Afghanistan and are found mainly in the northern regions of the country. Most likely the Uzbeks migrated with a wave of Turkic invaders and intermingled with local Iranian tribes over time to become the ethnic group they are today. By the 1500s the Uzbeks had settled throughout Central Asia and reached Afghanistan following the conquests of Muhammad Shaybani. Most Uzbeks are Sunni Muslim and are closely related to the Turkmen who also can be found in Afghanistan. The Uzbeks of Afghanistan are usually bilingual, fluent in both Persian and Uzbek.

The Turkmen are the smaller Turkic group who can also be found in neighboring Turkmenistan and Iran particularly around Mashad. Largely Sunni Muslim, their origins are very similar to that of the Uzbeks. Unlike, the Uzbeks, however, the Turkmen are traditionally a nomadic people (though they were forced to abandon this way of life in Turkmenistan itself under Soviet rule).

The Baluch are another Iranian ethnic group that numbers around 200,000 in Afghanistan. The main Baloch areas located in Balochistan province in Pakistan and Sistan and Baluchistan province of Iran. Many also live in southern Afghanistan. They are most likely an offshoot of the Kurds and reached Afghanistan sometime between 1000 and 1300 BCE. Mainly pastoral and desert dwellers, the Baluch are also Sunni Muslim.

Nuristani

The Nuristani are an Indo-Iranian people, representing a fourth independent branch of the Aryan peoples (Indo-Aryan, Iranian, Nuristani, and Dardic), who live in isolated regions of northeastern Afghanistan as well as across the border in the district of Chitral in Pakistan. They speak a variety of Nuristani languages. Better known historically as the Kafirs of what was once known as Kafiristan (land of pagans), they converted to Islam during the rule of Amir Abdur Rahman and their country was renamed "Nuristan", meaning "Land of Light" (as in the light of Islam). A small unconquered portion of Kafiristan inhabited by the Kalash tribe who still practice their pre-Islamic religion still exists across the border in highlands of Chitral, northwestern Pakistan. Many Nuristanis believe that they are the descendants of Alexander the Great's ancient Greeks, but there is a lack of genetic evidence for this and they are more than likely an isolated pocket of early Aryan invaders. Physically, the Nuristani are of the Mediterranean sub-stock with about one-third recessive blondism. They are largely Sunni Muslims.

Other groups

Other smaller groups include Aimaks, Pashai, Brahuis, Pamiris, Kyrgyz, Gujjars, and etc.

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

Noun: Afghan(s)

adjective: Afghan

Ethnic groups

Ethno linguistic groups of Afghanistan in 1972

Ethno linguistic groups of Afghanistan in 1997

Ethnolinguistic groups of Afghanistan in 2001-09

Afghanistan has never conducted a national census as of yet to determine the exact make-over of its ethnic groups, so most figures are based on old records and rough estimates.

No national census has been conducted in Afghanistan since a partial count in 1979, and years of war and population dislocation have made an accurate ethnic count impossible. Current population estimates are therefore rough approximations, which show that Pashtuns comprise somewhat less than two-fifths of the population. The two largest Pashtun tribal groups are the Durrānī and Ghilzay. Tajiks are likely to account for some one-fourth of Afghans and Ḥazāra nearly one-fifth. Uzbeks and Chahar Aimaks each account for slightly more than 5 percent of the population and Turkmen an even smaller portion.

Based on the partial count of 1979, the Encyclopædia Iranica in a July 1982 article by Louis Dupree gives the following numbers:

39.4% Pashtun

33.7% Tajik, Farsiwan, and Qezelbash

8.0% Hazara

8.0% Uzbek

4.1% Aimak

3.3% Turkmen

1.6% Baloch

1.9% other

The latest CIA World Factbook report shows the following numbers:

Pashtun: 42%

Tajik: 27%

Hazara: 9%

Uzbek: 9%

Aimak: 4%

Turkmen: 3%

Baloch: 2%

Other: 4%

According to a representative survey, named "A survey of the Afghan people - Afghanistan in 2006", a combined project of The Asia Foundation, the Indian Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) and the Afghan Center for Socio-economic and Opinion Research (ACSOR), the distribution of the ethnic groups is:

40.9% Pashtun

37.1% Tajik

9.2% Hazara

9.2% Uzbek

1.7% Turkmen

1.2% Kurds

0.5% Baloch

0.1% Aimak

1.3% other

According to another representative survey, named "Afghanistan: Where Things Stand", a combined effort by the American broadcasting channel ABC News, the British BBC, and the German ARD (from the years 2004 to 2009), and released on February 9th 2009, the ethnic composition of the country is (avarege numbers):

41% Pashtun

38% Tajik

10% Hazara

6% Uzbek

2% Turkmen

1.2% Kurds

1% Nuristani

1% Baloch

1% other

Languages

Dari (Persian) and Pashto are the two official languages of Afghanistan. Pashto is also the language of the Afghan National Anthem.

An approximate distribution of first languages based on the CIA World Factbook is as following:

Persian (officially designated as Dari): 50%

Pashto: 35%

Turkic languages (primarily Uzbek and Turkmen): 11%

30 minor languages (primarily Balochi and Pashayi): 4%

much bilingualism

Languages in Afghanistan (percentages are from CIA World Factbook: 50% Persian ("Dari") 35% Pashto 8% Uzbek 3% Turkmen 4% Balochi 2% other (Nuristani, Pashai, Brahui, etc.)

According to "A survey of the Afghan people - Afghanistan in 2006", the first languages spoken are:

Dari (Persian) 49%

Pashto 40%

Uzbek 9%

Turkmen 2%

As a second language, 37% of the population speaks Persian, and 18% speak Pashto.

Islam: 99.7% of the total population

Sunni Muslim: 84%

Shi'a Muslim: 15%

Other: less than 1%

Sikhism: In the thousands

Hinduism: In the thousands

Judaism (one known individual: Zablon Simintov)

Zoroastrianism: Unknown

Buddhism: Unknown