Pakistanis


Pakistanis are citizens of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Pakistan is a multi-ethnic and multilingual state: the majority of its people speak languages of the Indo-Aryan and Iranian language groups. According to the 2017 Census, the estimated population of Pakistan was over 212,000,000 making it the world's fifth most-populous country. In terms of overseas Pakistanis, the vast majority live in the Middle East, with an estimated population of 4,700,000. The next largest diaspora is in Europe, where there are an estimated 2,400,000 Pakistanis, with half of them residing in the United Kingdom.

Ethnic sub-groups

Pakistan has one of the world's fastest growing populations. Located in South Asia, its people belong to various ethnic sub-groups, most of them being of Indo-Iranic heritage.
Specific-linguistic groups: Punjabi, Sindhi, Saraiki, Pashtun, Balochi, and Kashmiri, with substantial numbers of Brahui, Hindko, Pahari, Shin, Burusho, Wakhi, Balti, Chitrali and other minority ethnic groups in the remote north of the country.
Main Groups of Pakistan: the Punjabi people, the Pashtun people, the Sindhi people, the Balochi people, the Urdu-speakers and the Kashmiri people.

Culture

Pakistan has a rich culture, with all of the provinces maintaining differing social mores. However, Islam has significantly shaped the values and traditions of many Pakistanis. National dress in Pakistan is Shalwar Qamiz.

Languages

Pakistan's main language is Urdu. Urdu was chosen as a token of unity and as a lingua franca so as not to give any native Pakistani language preference over the other. It is mostly learned as a second language, with nearly 93% of Pakistan's population having a mother tongue other than Urdu. Urdu is spoken as a first, second or at times third tongue by almost all Pakistani people. Numerous regional and provincial languages are spoken as first languages by the ethno-linguistic groups making up the country, with Punjabi having a plurality of native speakers with 45% of the total population. English is spoken at an official level. Languages with more than a million speakers each include Pashto, Sindhi, Saraiki, Balochi, Brahui and Hindko. There are about 60 additional languages spoken in the country.

Religion

The largest religion practiced in Pakistan is Islam. Other religious groups are Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, the Kalash faith, and Christianity. 95% of people in Pakistan are Muslims, 2% are Hindus, 2% are Christians and less than 1% of the population are Zoroastrian, Kalash, Bahai, Sikh, Irreligious and 1% of people are Ahmadiyyah.
Irreligion and atheism are present among a minority of mainly young people in Pakistan. In 2005, 1% of those who participated in the poll were atheist and by 2012, the figure rose to 2% according to the Gallup Poll. The same Gallup poll surveyed 2,700 in Pakistan which 54 people declared they had no religious beliefs at all.

Diaspora

A good number of Pakistani diaspora lives in Middle East, Australia, Europe, UK and North America.According to the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Pakistan has the 6th largest diaspora in the world. According to the Ministry of Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development, approximately 8.8 million Pakistanis live abroad, with the vast majority, over 4.7 million, residing in the Middle East.