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Tajikistan's main ethnic group are the Tajiks, with minorities such as the Uzbeks and Kyrgyz, and a small Russian minority. Due to the fact that 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 calls themselves Tajik.

Contemporary Tajiks are mostly Indo-European Iranian people. In particular, they are descended from ancient Eastern Iranian peoples of Central Asia such as the Soghdians and the Bactrians as well as Western Iranian Persians and along with a small degree of mixture from non-Indo-European 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 Indo-Aryan descent, the Tajiks. The distinction became less evident with gradual sedentarization of former Asian Turko-Mongol tribes and gradual intermixing of Asian and Indo-Aryan Tajiks who borrowed from both languages. 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^[2]. Thus almost 10 million Tajiks were forcefully Uzbekisized when Turkization promoted by Pan-Turkists failed^{[citation needed]}. The majority of Tajiks remained outside of their historic lands; that is, almost 10 million in Uzbkeistan , 7 million in Afghanistan , 2 million in Iran, and 1 million in Russia.

Historically, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan were also home to Bukharan Jews tracing their ancestry to Israelites taken captive by the Babylonians in the 7th century BC, only several hundred remain today.

Nationality:
noun: Tajikistani(s)
adjective: Tajikistani

Ethnic groups: Tajik 79.9%, Uzbek 15.3%, Russian 1.1 (declining because of emigration), Kyrgyz 1.1% , other (including Bukharan Jews and Volga Germans) 2.6%

Religions: Sunni Islam 85%, Shi'a Islam 5%, Other (including Orthodox Christian, Jewish) 10%

Languages: Persian (Tajiki dialect) (official), Russian widely used in government and business, Shugni (spoken in area near Khorog)

Literacy: Education is required through high school but completion rate is under 90%.
definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 99.4%
male: 99.6%
female: 99.1% (2003 est.)

Population: 6,863,752 (July 2003 est.)

Demographics of Tajikistan, Data of FAO, year 2005 ; Number of inhabitants in thousands.

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: -1.33 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2007 est.)

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.)

The ethic makeup according to the 2000 census [1]

Note: The term Tadzhik in addition to Tadzhiks includes approximately 135,000 Pamiris (Of which 65% Shughnanski, 13% Rushanski, 12% Wakhanski, 5% Bartangski, 3% Yazghulamski, 1.5% Khufski and 0.8% Ishkazemski) and 5,000 Yaghnobtsy.

• [CIA factbook]