page_title: Tokelau
section_title: Demography
hierarchical_section_title: Tokelau / Demography
caption_attribution_description: Languages spoken by Tokelau residents, 2011
context_page_description: Tokelau is a dependent territory of New Zealand in the southern Pacific Ocean. It consists of three tropical coral atolls, with a combined land area of 10 km². The capital rotates yearly among the three atolls. In addition, Swains Island, which forms part of the same archipelago, is subject to an ongoing territorial dispute and is currently administered by the United States as part of American Samoa. Tokelau lies north of the Samoan Islands, east of Tuvalu, south of the Phoenix Islands, southwest of the more distant Line Islands, and northwest of the Cook Islands.
  Tokelau has a population of approximately 1,500 people, the fourth-smallest population of any sovereign state or dependency. As of the 2016 census, around 45% of residents were born overseas, mostly in Samoa and New Zealand. The nation has a life expectancy of 69, comparable with other Oceanian island nations. Approximately 94% of the population speak Tokelauan as a first language. Tokelau has the smallest economy in the world, although it is a leader in renewable energy, being the first 100% solar powered nation in the world.
context_section_description: According to the 2016 Tokelau Census, Tokelau has a de jure usually resident population of 1,499 people. The census shows a 6.2% increase in the de jure usually resident population between 2011 and 2016.
  The nationals of Tokelau are called Tokelauans, and the major ethnic group is Polynesian; it has no recorded minority groups. About 84% of inhabitants are of wholly or partly Tokelauan ethnicity; people of Samoan ethnicity make up 6.7% of the population, and Tuvaluans 2.8%. The main language - spoken by over 90% of inhabitants - is Tokelauan, but almost 60% also speak English.
  The less than 1,500 Polynesian inhabitants live in three villages. Their isolation and lack of resources greatly limits economic development and confines agriculture to the subsistence level. The very limited natural resources and overcrowding are contributing to emigration to New Zealand and Samoa. In the 2013 New Zealand census, more than 7,000 people identified as Tokelauan, almost five times as many as live in Tokelau itself. Depletion of tuna has made fishing for food more difficult.
  A significant proportion (44.9% in 2016) of the population were born overseas, mostly in Samoa (15.3% of total population) and New Zealand (11.5%).
  While slightly more females than males live on Atafu and Fakaofo, males make up 57% of Nukunonu residents. Only 9% of Tokelauans aged 40 or more have never been married. One-quarter of the population were born overseas; almost all the rest live on the same atoll they were born on. Most households own five or more pigs.
  Despite its low income, Tokelau has a life expectancy of 69 years, comparable with other Oceania islands.
caption: Language statistics in Tokelau, 2006 and 2011
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