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1989 All-Union Population Census
1989 All-Union Population Census
	Soviet State Emblem
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General information
Country	Soviet Union
Results
Total population	286,730,819 ( 9.3%)
Most populous republic	Russian SFSR; 147,400,537
Least populous republic	Estonian SSR; 1,572,916

The 1989 Soviet census (Russian: Всесоюзная перепись населения 1989, lit. '1989 All-Union Census'), conducted between 12 and 19 January of that year, was the final census carried out in the Soviet Union. The census found the total population to be 286,730,819 inhabitants.^[1] In 1989, the Soviet Union ranked as the third most populous in the world, above the United States (with 248,709,873 inhabitants according to the 1990 census), although it was well below China and India.

Statistics

In 1989, about half of the Soviet Union's total population lived in the Russian SFSR, and approximately one-sixth (18%) of them in the Ukrainian SSR. Almost two-thirds (65.7%) of the population was urban, leaving the rural population with 34.3%.^[2] In this way, its gradual increase continued, as shown by the series represented by 47.9%, 56.3% and 62.3% of 1959, 1970 and 1979, respectively.^[3]

The last two national censuses (held in 1979 and 1989) showed that the country had been experiencing an average annual increase of about 2.5 million people, although it was a slight decrease from a figure of around 3 million per year in the previous intercensal period, 1959–1970. This post-war increase had contributed to the USSR's partial demographic recovery from the significant population loss that the USSR had suffered during the Great Patriotic War (the Eastern Front of World War II), and before it, during Stalin's Great Purge of 1936–1938. The previous postwar censuses, conducted in 1959, 1970 and 1979, had enumerated 208,826,650, 241,720,134, and 262,436,227 inhabitants, respectively.^[3]

In 1990, the Soviet Union was more populated than both the United States and Canada together, having some 40 million more inhabitants than the U.S. alone. However, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in late 1991, the combined population of the 15 former Soviet republics stagnated at around 290 million inhabitants for the period 1995–2000.

This significant slowdown may in part be due to the remarkable socio-economic changes that followed the dissolution, that have tended to reduce even more the already decreasing birth rates (which were already showing some signs of decline since the Soviet era, in particular among the people living in the European part of the Soviet Union, beginning from 1988 to 1989).

Today^{[as of?]} the population of the 15 former Soviet republics is around 299 million, with much of this growth attributed to the Central Asian states, which have increasing fertility, and in a smaller part Azerbaijan and Russia. Estonia, Belarus, Armenia and Georgia have also recorded some positive growth in the recent years. Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia and Lithuania are in continuous decline in population since early 1990s, although Ukraine's decline seemed to stabilise in early 2010s, before the Ukrainian crisis. Since 2019 Lithuania seems to appear some first signs of stabilisation around 2.8 million.

Ranking of Soviet republics

Rank	Soviet Republic	Population as of 1979 Census	Population as of 1989 Census^[4]	Change	Percent change
1	Russian SFSR	137,551,000	147,400,537	9,849,537	7.2%
2	Ukraine	49,755,000	51,706,742	1,951,742	3.9%
3	Uzbekistan	15,391,000	19,905,158	4,514,158	29.3%
4	Kazakhstan	14,684,000	16,536,511	1,852,511	12.6%
5	Byelorussia	9,560,000	10,199,709	639,709	6.7%
6	Azerbaijan	6,028,000	7,037,867	1,009,867	16.8%
7	Georgia	5,015,000	5,443,359	428,359	8.5%
8	Tajikistan	3,801,000	5,108,576	1,307,576	34.4%
9	Moldavia	3,947,000	4,337,592	390,592	9.9%
10	Kirghizia	3,529,000	4,290,442	761,442	21.6%
11	Lithuania	3,398,000	3,689,779	291,779	8.6%
12	Turkmenia	2,759,000	3,533,925	774,925	28.1%
13	Armenia	3,031,000	3,287,677	256,677	8.5%
14	Latvia	2,521,000	2,680,029	159,029	6.3%
15	Estonia	1,466,000	1,572,916	106,916	7.3%
	Soviet Union	262,436,000	286,730,819	24,294,819	9.3%

Ethnicities of the Soviet Union

Rank	Ethnicity	Population as of 1989 Census^[5]	Percentage
-	Total population	285,742,511	100%
1	Russians	145,155,489	50.8%
2	Ukrainians	44,186,006	15.5%
3	Uzbeks	16,697,825	5.8%
4	Belarusians	10,036,251	3.5%
5	Kazakhs	8,135,818	2.8%
6	Azerbaijanis	6,770,403	2.4%
7	Tatars	6,648,760	2.3%
8	Armenians	4,623,232	1.6%
9	Tajiks	4,215,372	1.5%
10	Georgians	3,981,045	1.4%
-	Others	35,292,310	12.4%

References

^ This is the total "de facto" population (nalichnoye naseleniye – наличное население); the "permanent" population (postoyannoye naseleniye – постоянное население) was about 1 million persons fewer. Over time, the State Statistics Committee changed its method of reporting population totals in censuses. In the 1959 and 1970 censuses, it used the permanent population; in 1979 and 1989 it used the de facto or present population. See Barbara A. Anderson and Brian D. Silver, "'Permanent' and 'Present' Populations in Soviet Statistics," Soviet Studies, Vol. 37, pp. 386-402, July 1985.
^ Encyclopædia Britannica Book of the Year 1991, Soviet Union, page 720.
^ ^a ^b United Nations: Demographic Yearbook, Historical supplement - Population by sex, residence, and intercensal rates of increase for total population, each census: 1948-1997, on the UN Statistics Division website (unstats.un.org Archived 2010-06-16 at the Wayback Machine).
^ Almanaque Mundial 1996, Editorial América/Televisa, Mexico, 1995, pages 548-552 (Demografía/Biometría table).
^ "Всесоюзная перепись населения 1989 года. Национальный состав населения по республикам СССР". Demoscope.ru (in Russian).