Uzbekistan's population has swelled by 1.1 percent since the beginning of the year and is close to reaching 30 million, Interfax reported Tuesday, citing the Central Asian country's State Statistics Committee.
The population reached 29.8 million on Oct. 1, an increase of 319,200 since January.
Just over half of the population — 15.2 million people — lives in cities, while the other 14.6 million live in rural areas.
Uzbekistan's capital, Tashkent, is the largest city with a population of 2.33 million, while the most densely populated area of Uzbekistan is the central Samarkand region with 3.36 million people. The Samarkand region does not include Tashkent but is home to the country's second-largest city, also called Samarkand.
Uzbekistan has the largest population of any Central Asian country and is the third-largest in the CIS, following Russia with 142 million and Ukraine with 45 million. If the current growth rate is maintained, Its population will reach 40 million by 2020.
In other Uzbek statistics, the country has registered 189,300 marriages and 13,900 divorces since the start of the year.
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