Demographics of Tajikistan

Video Transcript

The ethnic landscape of Tajikistan is somewhat complex. The Tajik ethnicity is, of course, the majority there, but you also find large pockets of ethnic Uzbeks. There's ethnic Kyrgyz that are in especially the northern parts of the country. And the way the borders were drawn in the Soviet days, these enclaves of people have really kind of exacerbated some tensions that are there between these different ethnic groups.<br><br>We've also seen, over the past decade or so, an increasing number of Afghan refugees that have come into especially southern Tajikistan. And while the majority of the Afghan refugees are Afghan Tajiks who speak a similar dialect to the Persian Tajik language of Tajikistan, the Tajiks of Tajikistan have not necessarily embraced the Afghan Tajiks as being of the same ethnicity.

In this video, a U.S. Army National Guard major discusses the ethnic landscape of Tajikistan.