Demography of Ukraine

Ukraine has an average population density of 85 persons per 1 sq km and according to the July 2006 survey the demography of Ukraine was 46,710,816 . Ukraine occupies the 5 th place in Europe after Germany, Italy, Great Britain, and France and 21 st place in the world in its size of population.

History

For ages the Ukrainians have lived on the territory where they are now. Their roots go back to the Trypillian culture that evolved in the Middle Dnipro region in the 3 rd millennium BC, the heritage of the Scythian tribes, and the Chernyakhiv culture. About 75 % are ethnic minorities are they are basically a Slavic people. The people of the western world frequently mistake the identification of Ukrainians with the Russians. Besides, even though the Ukrainian language differs from the Russian language, almost all Ukrainians speak good Russian. More so because Russian was the dominant language in the Soviet Union and previously Ukraine was under the USSR until its break up into small different countries.

Ukrainians in large numbers have emigrated over the centuries, mostly to the countries of the former Soviet Union, but also to the U.S., Canada and Australia. Thousands of people mostly all ethnic Ukrainians, died during a man-made famine in 1932-33 and many more lost their lives during World War II, when Ukraine was under the occupied Germans. The Russians occupying about 20% of the population of Ukraine immigrated in the time of the industrialization of the 19 th century and also in the 1930s.

A major number of Ukraine's demography consisted of the Jews, living in Ukraine for centuries. They played a major role in Ukrainian cultural life, especially in the 19 th and first half of the 20 th century. Though the Jewish distributions in Ukraine were the largest in the world, after the World War II many emigrated to Israel and the West decreasing their number in Ukraine considerably. Besides, other ethnicities include the Belarusans, Romanians, Greeks, Moldovans, Hungarians and the Poles. The Romanians and Moldavians are a significant minority group concentrated mainly in the Chernivtsi Oblast.

Recent Growth

Total Population

Urban population- 68%

Rural population -32%

According to the demography of Ukraine in the Census of 2001, the different groups that constitute the demographics of Ukraine are:

Groups

Ethnic Ukrainians -77.8%

Russians -17.3%

Belarusians -0.6%

Moldovans -0.5%

Crimean Tatars- 0.5%

Bulgarians- 0.4%

Poles-0.3%

Hungarians- 0.3%

Romanians- 0.3%

Jews -0.2%

Tatars -0.2%

Armenians -0.2%

Greeks- 0.2%

At present Ukraine's demography is facing a serious crisis with having the lowest birthrate in Europe. It ranks third in the world in the predicted population decline between the periods 2000 to 2005. With death rates climbing more than the birth rates, the present population of 46.7 million people is expected to decrease up to 40% by 2050. The most heavily populated part is the industrial regions in the east and south-east.

As estimated in 2006, the population growth rate was -0.6%, the birth rate was 8.82 births per 1,000 populations and the death rate was 4.39 deaths per 1,000 populations. About 14.1% are in the age group of 0-14 years, 69.3 % between 15-64 years and 16.6% are over 65 years.

For further information on the demography of Ukraine go through 123independenceday.com