IN modern world Russia is largest country, occupying a vast area - more than seventeen thousand square kilometers. Two continents divide it into parts - European and Asian. Each of them is larger in territory than many not-so-small states of the Earth.
In terms of population, however, our country is only in ninth place. The number of Russians today does not reach one hundred and fifty million people. The problem is that most The territory of the country lies under deserted steppes and taiga, for example, these are the most remote regions of Siberia.
However, this is compensated by the number of peoples living here. This was predetermined by the past. Historically, Russia is a multinational state, which it became by absorbing neighboring peoples, attracting strangers with large territories and wealth. According to official data, the Russian state is now home to almost two hundred peoples, differing sharply in numbers: from Russians (more than one hundred and ten million people) to Kerek (less than ten representatives).
How many of us are there?
How many peoples live in Russia? How to find out? Leading sources useful information about the population of our country are statistical censuses regularly conducted in recent years. At the same time, according to modern methods and according to democratic approaches, data on the nationality of Russian residents by origin is not noted in documents, which is why digital material for the census appeared on the basis of self-determination of Russians.
In total, in recent years, a little more than 80% of the country’s citizens declared themselves Russian by nationality, leaving only 19.1% as representatives of other nations. Almost six million census participants were unable to identify their nationality at all or defined it as a fantastic people (elves, for example).
Summing up the final calculations, it should be noted that the total number of peoples of the country who do not consider themselves Russian population did not exceed twenty-five million citizens.
This suggests that the ethnic composition of the Russian population is very complex and requires constant special attention. On the other hand, there is one large ethnic group that serves as a kind of core of the entire system.
Ethnic composition
The basis of the national composition of Russia is, of course, Russians. This people has its historical roots from Eastern Slavs who lived on the territory of Rus' since ancient times. A significant part of Russians exist, of course, in Russia, but there are large layers in a number of former Soviet republics and in the USA. This is the most significant European ethnic group. Today there are more than one hundred and thirty-three million Russians living in the world.
Russians are the titular people of our country; their representatives dominate a significant number of regions of the modern Russian state. Of course, this led to side effects. The spread of this nation over several centuries over a vast territory during historical development led to the formation of dialects, as well as individual ethnic groups. For example, on the coast of the White Sea live the Pomors, who form a subethnic group of local Karelians and Russians who arrived in the past.
Among the more complex ethnic associations, groups of peoples can be noted. The largest group of peoples are the Slavs, mainly from the eastern subgroup.
In total, representatives of nine large language families live in Russia, differing greatly in language, culture, and way of life. With the exception of the Indo-European family, they are mainly of Asian origin.
This is the approximate ethnic composition of the Russian population today according to official data. What can be said definitely is that our country is distinguished by a significant diversity of nationalities.
The largest nations of Russia
The nationalities living in Russia are quite clearly divided into numerous and small. The first ones, in particular, include:
- The Russian inhabitants of the country number (according to the latest census) more than one hundred and ten million people.
- Tatars of several groups, reaching 5.4 million people.
- Ukrainians number two million. The bulk of the Ukrainian people live on the territory of Ukraine; in Russia, representatives of this people appeared in the course of historical development in the pre-revolutionary, Soviet, and modern periods.
- Bashkirs, another nomadic people in the past. Their number is 1.6 million people.
- Chuvash, residents of the Volga region - 1.4 million.
- Chechens, one of the peoples of the Caucasus, - 1.4 million, etc.
There are other peoples of similar numbers who played an important role in the past and, possibly, the future of the country.
Small nations of Russia
How many small nations live on the territory of Russia? There are many such ethnic groups in the country, but they are poorly represented in the total population because they are very few in number. To these national groups belong to the peoples of the Finno-Ugric, Samoyed, Turkic, Sino-Tibetan groups. Particularly small are the Kereks (a tiny people - only four people), the Vod people (sixty-four people), the Enets (two hundred and seventy-seven), the Ults (almost three hundred people), the Chulyms (a little more than three and a half hundred), the Aleuts (almost half a thousand) , Negidals (just over five hundred), Orochi (almost six hundred). For all of them, the problem of survival is a pressing and everyday issue.
Map of the peoples of Russia
In addition to the strong dispersion in the size of the national composition of Russia and the inability of many ethnic groups in modern times to maintain their numbers independently, there is also the problem of distribution within the country. The population of Russia is distributed very heterogeneously, which is caused primarily by economic incentives both in the historical past and in the present.
The bulk is located in the area between the Baltic St. Petersburg, the Siberian Krasnoyarsk, the Black Sea Novorossiysk and the Far Eastern Primorsky Territory, where all big cities. The reasons for this are the good climate and favorable economic background. To the north of this territory there is permafrost caused by eternal cold, and to the south there are vast expanses of lifeless desert.
In terms of population density, one of the last places in the modern world received Siberia. Its vast territory is home to less than 30 million inhabitants. This represents only 20% of the country's total population. While in its vast area Siberia reaches three-quarters of the expanses of Russia. The most densely populated areas are the directions Derbent - Sochi and Ufa - Moscow.
In the Far East, a significant population density runs along the entire length of the Trans-Siberian Highway. Increased standards of population density are also observed in the Kuznechny coal basin region. All these areas attract Russians with their economic and natural wealth.
The country's largest peoples: Russians, and to a lesser extent Tatars and Ukrainians, are mainly located in the southwest of the state. Ukrainians today are mostly located on the territory of the Chukotka Peninsula and in the Khanty-Mansiysk Okrug, in the distant Magadan region.
Other small peoples of the Slavic ethnic group, such as the Poles and Bulgarians, do not create large compact groups and are scattered throughout the country. Enough compact group The Polish population is located only in the Omsk region.
Tatars
The number of Tatars living in Russia, as noted above, exceeded the level of three percent of the total Russian population. About a third of them live compactly in the region of the Russian Federation called the Republic of Tatarstan. Group settlements exist in the Volga regions, in the far north, etc.
A significant part of the Tatars are supporters of Sunni Islam. Certain groups of Tatars have differences in language, culture and way of life. Common language is within Turkic group languages of the Altai language family, it has three dialects: Mishar (western), the more widespread Kazan (middle), and the slightly distant Siberian-Tatar (eastern). In Tatarstan this language appears as an official one.
Ukrainians
One of the many East Slavic peoples is the Ukrainians. More than forty million Ukrainians live in their historical homeland. In addition, significant diasporas exist not only in Russia, but also in the countries of Europe and America.
Ukrainians living in Russia, including labor migrants, number about five million people. A significant number of them are located in cities. Especially large groups This ethnic group is located in the capital, in oil- and gas-bearing regions of Siberia, the Far North, etc.
Belarusians
IN modern Russia Belarusians, taking into account their total number in the world, constitute large number. As the 2010 census of the Russian population shows, there are just over half a million Belarusians living in Russia. A significant proportion of white people are located in the capitals, as well as in a number of regions, for example in Karelia and the Kaliningrad region.
In the pre-revolutionary years, a large number of Belarusians moved to Siberia and Far East, later national administrative units existed there. By the end of the eighties, there were more than one million Belarusians on the territory of the RSFSR. Nowadays, their number has been halved, but it is obvious that the Belarusian stratum in Russia will be preserved.
Armenians
There are quite a lot of Armenians living in Russia, although according to different sources, their number differs. Thus, according to the 2010 census, there were slightly more than one million people in Russia, that is, less than one percent of the total population. According to the assumptions of the Armenians public organizations, the number of the Armenian stratum in the country at the beginning of the twentieth century exceeded two and a half million people. And Russian President V.V. Putin, speaking about the number of Armenians in Russia, voiced the figure of three million people.
In any case, Armenians play a serious role in the social and cultural life of Russia. Thus, Armenians work in the Russian government (Chilingarov, Bagdasarov, etc.), in show business (I. Allegrova, V. Dobrynin, etc.), and in other fields of activity. In sixty-three regions of Russia there are regional organizations Union of Armenians of Russia.
Germans
The Germans living in Russia are representatives of an ethnic group that has experienced a contradictory and, in some ways, even tragic story. Those migrating en masse in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by invitation Russian government, they mainly settled in the Volga region, western and southern provinces Russian Empire. Life on good lands was easy, but in the twentieth century historical events hit the Germans hard. First the First World War, then the Great Patriotic War led to mass repression. In the fifties and eighties of the last century, the history of this ethnic group was hushed up. It is not for nothing that the mass migration of Germans began in the nineties, the number of which, according to some sources, barely exceeds half a million.
True, in recent years, episodic re-evacuations from Europe to Russia have begun, but so far they have not reached large proportions.
Jews
It is difficult to say how many Jews currently live in Russia due to their active migration both to Israel and back to the Russian state. In the historical past there were many Jews in our country - in Soviet era several million. But with the collapse of the USSR and significant migration to their historical homeland, their number decreased. Now, according to public Jewish organizations, there are approximately one million Jews in Russia, half of them are residents of the capital.
Yakuts
It's Turkic enough numerous people, the indigenous population of the region adapted to local conditions.
How many Yakuts are there in Russia? According to the 2010 All-Russian Census of the Domestic Population, there were slightly less than half a million people, mainly in Yakutia and surrounding regions. The Yakuts are the largest (about half the population) people and the most significant of the indigenous peoples of Russian Siberia.
In the traditional economy and material culture of this people there are many similarities with the pastoralists of southern Asia. On the territory of the Middle Lena, a version of the Yakut economy was formed, combining nomadic cattle breeding and the most important extensive types of fisheries (meat and fish production), similar to the local one. In the north of the region there is also a distinctive form of harness reindeer herding.
Reasons for resettlement
The history of the ethnic composition of the population of Russia in the course of its development is extremely ambiguous. The accelerated settlement of the Russian state by Ukrainians occurred back in the Middle Ages. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, according to instructions government agencies settlers from the southern lands headed east to develop new territories. After some time, representatives of social classes from different regions began to be sent there.
Representatives of the intelligentsia voluntarily moved to St. Petersburg in an era when this city had the status of the capital of the state. Nowadays, Ukrainians constitute the largest ethnic group in Russia in terms of number of people after, of course, the Russians.
At the other pole are representatives of small nations. The Kereks, who have the smallest numbers, are in particular danger. According to the latest census, there are only four representatives left, although fifty years ago there were only one hundred Kerek people. The leading languages for these people are Chukchi and common Russian; native Kerek is found only in the form of the usual passive language. The Kereks, in terms of their level of culture and ordinary daily activities, are very close to the Chukchi people, which is why they were in constant assimilation with them.
Problems and future
The ethnic composition of the Russian population will undoubtedly develop in the future. IN modern conditions The revival of ethnographic traditions and the culture of peoples is clearly visible. However, the development of ethnic groups experiences a number of problems:
- poor fertility and gradual decline of most peoples;
- globalization, and at the same time the influence of the culture and life of large nations (Russian and Anglo-Saxon);
- general economic problems that undermine the economic base of peoples, and so on.
Much in such a situation depends on the national governments themselves, including the Russian one, and on global opinion.
But I want to believe that the small peoples of Russia will further develop and grow in size in the coming centuries.
Do you know how many peoples there are in the world? Probably, few people will be able to accurately answer this question, even among scientists and historians. In Russia alone there are 194 nations of the world (the list goes on and on). All people on Earth are completely different, and this is the biggest advantage.
General classification
Of course, everyone is interested in quantitative data. If you collect all the peoples of the world, the list will be endless. It is much easier to classify them according to certain characteristics. First of all, this is done depending on what language people speak within the same territory or the same cultural traditions. An even more general category is language families.
Preserved through the centuries
Every nation, no matter what its history, tries with all possible forces to prove that their ancestors built the Tower of Babel. It is flattering for everyone to think that he or she belongs to those roots that go back to distant, distant times. But there are ancient peoples of the world (the list is attached), whose prehistoric origin is beyond doubt.
Largest nations
There are many large nations on Earth that have one historical roots. For example, there are 330 nations in the world, numbering a million people each. But there are only eleven of those with more than 100 million people (each). Consider the list of peoples of the world by number:
- Chinese - 1.17 million people.
- Hindustani - 265 million people.
- Bengalis - 225 million people.
- Americans (USA) - 200 million people.
- Brazilians - 175 million people.
- Russians - 140 million people.
- Japanese - 125 million people.
- Punjabis - 115 million people.
- Biharis - 115 million people.
- Mexicans - 105 million people.
- Javanese - 105 million people.
Unity in diversity
Another classification characteristic that allows us to distinguish between the world’s population is threefold: Caucasoid, Mongoloid and Negroid. Some Western historians distinguish a little more, but these races still became derivatives of the three main ones.
In the modern world there are a large number of contact races. This led to the emergence of new peoples of the world. The list has not yet been provided by scientists, because no one has worked on an exact classification. Here are some examples. The Ural group of peoples originated from the mixing of some branches of northern Caucasoids and northern Mongoloids. The entire population of southern island Asia arose as a result of the kinship of Mongoloids and Australoids.
Endangered ethnic groups
There are nations of the world on Earth (the list is attached), the number of which amounts to several hundred people. These are endangered ethnic groups who are trying to preserve their identity.
Conclusions
Can be interpreted in different ways. Some will argue that this population is within the state, others will insist that it does not matter where people live, the main thing is that they are united by some common features, defining their belonging to the same historical sources. Still others will believe that a people is an ethnic group that has existed for centuries, but has faded over the years. In any case, all people on Earth are very diverse and studying them is a pleasure.
October 18, 2013
Planet Earth is populated different peoples. Some nations have a small number of people, while others, on the contrary, make up a significant part of the inhabitants of the entire Earth and are considered the most numerous people.
If you ask a question about which of the nations is the most numerous, then almost everyone in their answer will indicate that they are the Chinese. This statement cannot be considered true, since the Chinese call the name of their people completely differently.
It turns out that the Chinese people call themselves Han. This name comes from the time the dynasty called Han began to exist. The Han Chinese currently account for 92 percent of the population in China. As for the remaining 8 percent of the Chinese people, they call themselves a national minority.
It is worth noting that about 1.2 billion Han Chinese live in China itself today. If we compare this number of people with the number of people who live on the planet, it turns out that the Han Chinese make up 19 percent of the total number of all people on Earth. The calculation of this number of Khans does not include those inhabitants of the planet who are considered emigrated migrants. You can say it another way, namely, every fifth person on earth is Han. So we can safely say that the Han people are the most numerous people.
Overpopulation of the country
The Chinese people have always experienced such a problem as overpopulation of the country. After the first population census was carried out, it was decided to reduce the birth rate in the country. But, nevertheless, the large Khan people did not support the policy that the state sought to maintain in relation to the birth rate.
The whole point is that the Chinese state does not strive to take care of its elderly. Only those who worked in state-owned enterprises, as well as government employees, can count on a good old age in China. If we compare the number of such citizens who worked in these areas with the rest of the number of people working in other sectors, it turns out that there are very few lucky ones who are awarded state support. Therefore, parents have no one else to rely on except their children.
Attitude to fertility
In this country, it has even become a tradition that a child, as an adult, is obliged to take care of his elderly parent. Now it’s worth imagining that if there is only one child in a Khan’s family, then taking care of his parents will not be very easy for him, of course, unless he becomes a rich man. That is why the Chinese people do not strive to adhere to a policy that implies the birth of only one child in a family. So it turns out that the Khans are not giving up their position regarding the birth rate, which means there will always be many of them.
As a matter of fact, the policy that the state previously pursued in China regarding reducing the birth rate, advising one family to give birth to only one child, no longer has such widespread. Among provincial residents, there is a tendency to give birth to approximately one and a half children per family. But as for the national minority, they are characterized by the birth of at least two children in a family.
No matter how the Chinese state tries to reduce the number of children born in a family, even regulating this by law, the Chinese people still want to have large families. In this regard, other peoples should not even try to get ahead of the number of Khans who inhabit today, and will also inhabit the territory of the Earth in the future.
Since it is customary for Han Chinese families to have many children, this people will be considered the most numerous for a very long time, and probably few will be able to overtake them. Although. . . everything can happen.