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| 1st row: Muhammad Ali Jinnah · Muhammad Iqbal · Ayub Khan 2nd row: Noor Jehan · Abdus Salam · Benazir Bhutto 3rd row: Abdul Sattar Edhi · Abdul Qadeer Khan · Imran Khan 4th row: Shahid Afridi · Sayeeda Warsi · Sadiq Khan 5th row: Rahim Shah · Atif Aslam · Nadia Ali |
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| Total population | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 187 million approx. 2.7% of the world's population |
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| Regions with significant populations | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Pakistan: 187,000,000 (2011) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Islam 97% (Sunni majority, 5–20% Shia) with Christian, Zorastrian Hindu, Sikh and Bahai minorities |
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Pakistani people or Pakistanis (Urdu: پاکستانی قوم) are a nationality and pan-ethnic group who are the native citizens and residents of Pakistan. Pakistan's estimated population in 2011 is over 187 million[1][2] making it the world's sixth most-populous country. Pakistan is in essence a multi-ethnic and multilingual nation that is home to people of diverse regional ethnicities and nationalities, reflecting the rich and complex demographics and history of Pakistan. As a result, Pakistanis do not consider their nationality as an ethnicity but as a citizenship with various ethnicities comprising the "Pakistani people."
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Pakistan has one of the world's fastest growing populations. Being a South Asian country that is located on the fringes of the Greater Middle East, Greater Persia and Central Asia regions, the Pakistani people are a mixture of various ethnic groups, as a result of the occupation and migration of the region by people passing through on their way to the Indian subcontinent. In the west, the Pashtun people are an indigenous group of the northwest who have been settled in the region for decades while the Baloch people are an eastern Iranic ethnic group who inhabit the southwest of the country.[3] The Punjabi people, the largest ethnic group, reside in the northeast and have been the primary inhabitants of the historical Punjab region. The Sindhi people on the other hand have been settled in the southeast, while regional groups such as the Seraiki people have inhabited the regions between Punjab and Sindh.[3] Groups in the west of the country share cultural ties with neighboring Afghanistan, Iran, Central Asia and Middle East regions. The Kashmiri people are an important ethnic group of the Kashmir region in the north. Along with these main groups, there are large communities of Urdu-speaking Muhajir people who came from India and settled in the newly-created Muslim state of Pakistan in 1947.[3]
Urdu is the national language of Pakistan although there are numerous regional and provincial languages which are spoken as first languages by the ethno-linguistic groups making up the country. English is spoken at an official level and is a legacy of the long British Raj colonial rule in the region.
There are large populations of Pakistani ancestry around the world, due to emigration. The population of Pakistanis abroad is considered to exceed seven million and can be found in the Middle East, North America, Europe, Asia and Australia.