Demographics
As of 2008, there are 5.4 million Tibetans in China. The SIL Ethnologue in 2009 documents an additional 189,000 Tibetan language speakers living in India, 5,280 in Nepal, and 4,800 in Bhutan. The Central Tibetan Administration's (CTA) own refugee register counts 145,150 Tibetans outside Tibet: a little over 100,000 in India; in Nepal there are over 16,000; over 1,800 in Bhutan and more than 25,000 in other parts of the world. There are Tibetan communities in the Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, France, Mexico, Norway, Taiwan, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and USA.
How the current numbers compare to Tibetans historically is a difficult claim. The CTA claims that the 5.4 million number is a decrease from 6.3 million in 1959 while the Chinese government claims that it is an increase from 2.7 million in 1954. However, the question depends on the definition and extent of "Tibet"; the region claimed by the CTA is more expansive and China more diminutive. Also, the Tibetan administration did not take a formal census of its territory in the 1950s; the numbers provided by the administration at the time were "based on informed guesswork".
The Tibetan population growth is attributed by PRC officials to the improved quality of health and lifestyle of the average Tibetan since the beginning of reforms under the Chinese governance. According to Chinese sources, the infant mortality rate in Tibet was 35.3 per 1,000 in the year 2000, as compared to the 430 infant deaths per 1,000 in 1951. The average life expectancy for Tibetans rose from 35 years in 1950s to over 65 years in the 2000s. Infant mortality in China as a whole was officially rated as 3.1 percent in 2003. UNICEF in 2004 acknowledged the improvements but said that the infant mortality rate still lags behind the national rate eightfold, although Melvyn Goldstein and his colleagues in 2002 reported a 12.9% rate (fourfold), and official sources in 2004 rated it 3.1% (about equal).
Read more about this topic: Tibetan People