Population of Russia
Russia is the ninth country in the world in terms of population (about 144,300,000). The average density of the population is very small and is about 8.57 people/sq. km. However, it should be noted that the population is extremely unevenly distributed: about 68% of the population lives in the European part of Russia, which is about 20% of the territory.
The majority of the population of Russia is concentrated in a triangle the tops of which are St. Petersburg in the north, Sochi in the south and Irkutsk in the east. In Siberia, almost 75% of the territory of Russia, less than 20% of the population lives.
Russians - facts and features
In Siberia and the Far East, the population is concentrated along the route of the Trans-Siberian Railway (Omsk, Novosibirsk, Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk, Khabarovsk, Vladivostok), as well as in the Kuznetsk coal basin.
The density of the population in the European part of Russia is 27 people/sq. km., in the Asian part - 3 people/sq. km. Among the subjects of the Russian Federation, the largest population density is registered in Moscow - more than 4,600 people/sq. km., the smallest - in the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug - less than 0.07 people/sq. km.
The urban population is about 74%. There are 15 cities with a population of more than 1 million people: Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Ekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Samara, Omsk, Kazan, Chelyabinsk, Rostov-on-Don, Ufa, Volgograd, Perm, Krasnoyarsk, Voronezh.
According to the 2010 population census, representatives of more than 180 nationalities (ethnic groups) reside in Russia. Russians make up about 80% of the total population, they are unevenly distributed across the country: in some regions, such as Chechnya, Dagestan, Ingushetia, they make up less than 5% of the population.
Also it should be mentioned that “Russians” in English usually refers to all citizens of the Russian Federation regardless of their nationality (in Russian language a citizen of the country is called “rossiyanin”, plural “rossiyane”).
About 75% of Russians living in the country consider themselves to be followers of Orthodoxy, the proportion of people who do not profess any religion is also significant.
The national language is Russian belonging to the eastern subgroup of the Slavic languages that are part of the Indo-European family of languages. The Russian language uses writing on the basis of the Russian alphabet, which goes back to the Cyrillic alphabet. Russian is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Spoken Russian language must be studied by all astronauts working on the ISS.
Russia is among the top ten states with the lowest ratio of the number of people of working age and pensioners. For one pensioner there are about 2.4 employed, in China this ratio is 3.5, in the USA - 4.4.
