page_title: Tuva
section_title: Ethnic groups
hierarchical_section_title: Tuva / Demographics / Ethnic groups
caption_attribution_description: Русский: сай хонаш посетители
context_page_description: Tuva or Tyva, officially the Tyva Republic, is a federal subject of Russia.
  The Tuvan republic lies at the geographical center of Asia, in southern Siberia. The republic borders the Altai Republic, the Republic of Khakassia, Krasnoyarsk Krai, Irkutsk Oblast, and the Republic of Buryatia in Russia and Mongolia to the south. It has a population of 307,930. Its capital is the city of Kyzyl.
  From 1921 to 1944, Tuva constituted a sovereign, independent, but partially recognized nation, acknowledged only by its neighbors the Soviet Union and Communist Mongolia. It was known officially as Tannu Tuva until 1926 and thereafter as the Tuvan People's Republic.
  A majority of the population are ethnic Tuvans who speak Tuvan as their native tongue, while Russian is spoken natively by the Russian minority; both are official and widely understood in the republic. Tuva is governed by the Great Khural, which elects a chairman for a four-year term.
context_section_description: According to the 2010 Census, Tuvans make up 82.0% of the republic's population. Other groups include Russians (16.3%), and a host of smaller groups, each accounting for less than 0.5% of the total population.
  As can be seen above, during the period 1959–2010 there has been more than a doubling of ethnic Tuvans. The Russian population growth slowed by the 1980s and decreased by 50% since 1989. The official languages are Tuvan (Turkic) and Russian (Slavic).
  Outside Kyzyl, settlements have few if any Russian inhabitants and, in general, Tuvans use their original language as their first language. However, there is a small population of Old Believers in the Republic scattered in some of the most isolated areas. Before Soviet rule, there were a number of large ethnic Russian Old Believer villages, but as the atheist ideology crept in, the believers moved deeper and deeper into the taiga in order to avoid contact with outsiders. Major Old Believer villages are Erzhei, Uzhep, Unzhei, Zhivei and Bolee Malkiye (all in the Kaa-Khemsky District). Smaller ultra-Orthodox settlements are found further upstream.
  Ethnic Russians make up 38.68% of the population (as of 2002 Census) in Kaa-Khemsky District, one of the most remote regions in Tuva. The population is mostly Old Believers. Russians account for 34.12% of the population in Piy-Khemsky and 19.80% in Todzhinsky. In Kyzyl, they account for 37.02%.
caption: Tuvans in 2016
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