Abkhazia
Ethnicity

The ethnic composition of Abkhazia has played a central role in the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict. The 1992–1993 war with Georgia resulted in the expulsion and flight of over half of the republic's population, which had numbered 525,061 in the 1989 census. The population of Abkhazia remains ethnically very diverse, even after the 1992–1993 war. At present the population of Abkhazia is mainly made up of ethnic Abkhaz (50.7% according to the 2011 census), Russians, Armenians, Georgians (mostly Mingrelians), and Greeks. Other ethnicities include Ukrainians, Belarusians, Ossetians, Tatars, Turks, Roma and Estonians.

Greeks constituted a significant minority in the area in the early 1920s (50,000), and remained a major ethnic group until 1945, when they were deported to Central Asia. Under the Soviet Union, the Russian, Armenian, and Georgian populations grew faster than the Abkhaz population, due to large-scale enforced migration, especially under the rule of Joseph Stalin and Lavrenty Beria.

At the time of the 1989 census, Abkhazia's Georgian population numbered 239,872, forming around 45.7% of the population, and the Armenian population was 77,000. Due to ethnic cleansing and displacement due to people fleeing the 1992–1993 war, the Georgian population, and to a lesser extent the Russian and Armenian populations, has greatly declined. In 2003 Armenians formed the second-largest minority group in Abkhazia (closely matching the Georgians), numbering 44,869. By the time of the 2011 census, Georgians formed the second-largest minority group with a population of 46,455. Despite the official numbers, unofficial sources estimate that the Abkhaz and Armenian communities are roughly equal in number.

In the wake of the Syrian civil war Abkhazia granted refugee status to a few hundred Syrians with Abkhaz, Abazin and Circassian ancestry. Facing a growing Armenian community, this move has been linked with the wish of the ruling Abkhaz —who have often been in the minority on their territory— to tilt the demographic balance in favour of the titular nation.
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