Demographics of Karachi - Ethnic Groups

Ethnic Groups

There are several ethnic groups in Karachi including Sindhis, Muhajirs (refugees from India), Punjabis, Pashtuns, Kashmiris, Seraikis and Balochis. Sindhis and Balochis are indigenous people who founded the city. There are also some important sub-ethnic groups like Memons and Bohras and others. There is also a large number of people belonging to Ismailis sect of Islam consisting Sindhi and Gilgiti ethnic groups. Due to the conflicts in Afghanistan since 1979, a steady stream of Afghan refugees have also taken up residence in and around Karachi. They number about 50,000 as of 2009 and consist mainly of ethnic Pashtuns, followed by Tajiks and others. There are also hundreds of thousands of Arabs, Iranians, Turkish, Filipinos, Muslim Arakani refugees (from Rakhine State in Myanmar), Bosnians, Albanians, Polish, Lebaneses, Armenians, Goan, Bengalis and Africans immigrants who are also settled in Karachi. Most refugee minorities of the city live in poor neighbourhoods.The Pashtuns (Pakhtuns or Pathans), originally from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, FATA and northern Balochistan, are now the city's second largest ethnic group in Karachi after Muhajirs. With as high as 7 million by some estimates, the city of Karachi in Pakistan has the largest concentration of urban Pakhtun population in the world, including 50,000 registered Afghan refugees in the city. As per current demographic ratio Pashtuns are about 25% of Karachi's population.

According to the last official census of country held in 1998, which became highly controversial, the linguistic distribution of the city was: Urdu: 48.52%; Sindhi: 7.22%; Punjabi: 13.94%; Pashto: 11.42%‎; Balochi: 4.34%; Saraiki: 2.11%; others: 12.44%. The others include Dari, Gujarati, Dawoodi Bohra, Memon, Marwari, Brahui, Makrani, Khowar, Burushaski, Arabic, Persian and Bengali.