Editing Demographics of Uzbekistan (section)

==Overview==
Uzbekistan is Central Asia's most populous country. Its 36.8 million people (as of January 2024<ref name=stat.uz>{{cite web | url=https://stat.uz/en/press-center/news-of-committee/49287-o-zbe-kistonda-doimiy-aholi-soni-har-kuni-o-rtacha-2-1-ming-kishiga-oshmoqda-4 | title=The permanent population of Uzbekistan is increasing by an average of 2.1 thousand people every day }}</ref>) comprise nearly half the region's total population.

The population of Uzbekistan is very young: 30.1% of its people are younger than 14.<ref name=Demography>https://stat.uz/en/official-statistics/demography {{bare URL inline|date=February 2024}}</ref> According to official sources, [[Uzbeks]] comprise a majority (84.4%) of the total population. Other ethnic groups, as of 1996 estimates, include [[Russians]] (2.1% of the population), [[Tajiks]] (4,8%), [[Kazakhs]] (3%), [[Karakalpaks]] (2.5%), and [[Tatars]] (1.5%).<ref name=cia1>Uzbekistan in [https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/uzbekistan/ CIA World Factbook] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210203042919/https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/uzbekistan/ |date=2021-02-03 }}</ref>
Uzbekistan has an ethnic [[Koreans|Korean]] population that was [[Deportation of Koreans in the Soviet Union|forcibly relocated]] to the region from the [[Russian Far East|Soviet Far East]] in 1937–1938. There are also small groups of [[Armenians]] in Uzbekistan, mostly in [[Tashkent]] and [[Samarkand]]. The nation is 94% Muslim (mostly [[Sunni Islam|Sunni]]), 3% [[Eastern Orthodoxy|Eastern Orthodox]] and 3% other faiths (which include small communities of Korean Christians, other Christian denominations, Buddhists, Baha'is, and more).<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20210816035247/https://2001-2009.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2004/35493.htm ''International Religious Freedom Report for 2004''], U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (released 2004-09-15)</ref>  The [[Bukharan Jews]] have lived in Central Asia, mostly in Uzbekistan, for thousands of years. There were 94,900 [[Jews]] in [[Uzbekistan]] in 1989<ref name=Jews2001>[http://www.ajcarchives.org/AJC_DATA/Files/2001_13_WJP.pdf World Jewish Population 2001] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131206165604/http://www.ajcarchives.org/AJC_DATA/Files/2001_13_WJP.pdf |date=2013-12-06 }}, ''American Jewish Yearbook'', vol. 101 (2001), p. 561.</ref> (about 0.5% of the population according to the [[Ethnic groups in Uzbekistan|1989 census]]), but now, since the collapse of the USSR, most Central Asian Jews left the region for the [[United States]] or [[Israel]]. More than 5,000 Jews remain in Uzbekistan.<ref name=Jews2007>[http://www.ajcarchives.org/AJC_DATA/Files/AJYB727.CV.pdf World Jewish Population 2007] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090326020910/http://www.ajcarchives.org/AJC_DATA/Files/AJYB727.CV.pdf |date=2009-03-26 }}, ''American Jewish Yearbook'', vol. 107 (2007), p. 592.</ref>

Much of Uzbekistan's population was engaged in [[cotton]] farming in large-scale [[Collective farming|collective farms]] when the country was part of the [[Soviet Union]]. The population continues to be heavily rural and dependent on farming for its livelihood, although the [[Agriculture in Uzbekistan#Changing farm structure|farm structure in Uzbekistan]] has largely shifted from collective to individual since 1990.