Demography

Abstract

In the past, the population size, structure and composition of Central Asia were probably very different from what they are today. For centuries Central Asia was a region where people of Turkic-Mongol, Indo-Arian and Middle Eastern origin mixed in a giant melting pot. Probably, the size of the population peaked between the fourth and second centuries B.C., the fifth and seventh centuries A.D., the eleventh and thirteenth centuries and the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. This fluctuation can be seen in the fate of the city of Samarqand (now in Uzbekistan). According to various chronicles, Samarqand’s population reached about 20,000 in the second century B.C., 50,000 in the fifth to sixth century A.D., 100,000 to 200,000 in the eleventh century, declined to about 50,000 in first half of thirteenth century, climbed to about 300,000 in the early fifteenth century, and dwindled to just 1,000 families in the early eighteenth century; the city grew to 50,000 in the nineteenth century. In 2007 its population reached 412,000 according to an official estimate.