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Concept
Demographics of Afghanistan
Summary
The population of Afghanistan is around 41 million as of 2023. The nation is composed of a multi-ethnic and multilingual society, reflecting its location astride historic trade and invasion routes between Central Asia, South Asia, and Western Asia. Ethnic groups in the country include Pashtun, Tajik, Hazara, Uzbeks as well as smaller groups such as Nuristanis, Aimaq, Turkmen, Baloch and some others which are less known. Together they make up the contemporary Afghan people.
Approximately 46% of the population is under 15 years of age, and 74% of all Afghans live in rural areas. The average woman gives birth to five children during her entire life, the highest fertility rate outside of Africa. About 6.8% of all babies die in child-birth or infancy. The average life expectancy of the nation was reported in 2019 at around 63 years, and only 0.04% of the population has HIV.
Persian (Dari) and Pashto are both the official languages of the country. Dari functions as the inter-ethnic lingua franca for the vast majority. Pashto is widely used in the regions south of the Hindu Kush mountains and as far as the Indus River in neighbouring Pakistan. Uzbek and Turkmen are smaller languages spoken in parts of the north. Multilingualism is common throughout the country, especially in the major cities.
Up to 89.7% of the population practices Sunni Islam and belongs to the Hanafi Islamic law school, while 10–15% are followers of Shia Islam; the majority of whom belong to the Twelver branch, with smaller numbers of Ismailis. The remaining 0.3% practice other religions such as Sikhism and Hinduism. Excluding urban populations in the principal cities, most people are organised into tribal and other kinship-based groups, who follow their own traditional customs.
Anatol Lieven of Georgetown University in Qatar wrote in 2021 that "it may be noted that in the whole of modern Afghan history there has never been a census that could be regarded as remotely reliable.
Official source
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