Our Population
According to the 2003 census, Abkhazia has about 216,000 citizens. Anti-Abkhaz policies in the 20th century, and the more recent Georgian attacks on Abkhazia, led to a decline in numbers. However the population is once again growing, thanks to the increased security that has resulted from Abkhazia's independent status and its expanding partnership with Russia.
Abkhazian, a Northwest Caucasian tongue, is the main language of the country, spoken by about half the population. Russian and Abkhazian are the co-official languages, although recent laws mandate that an increasing amount of official business and government documents use Abkhazian. The Abkhazian language has used Arabic, Latin, Georgian and Cyrillic scripts over the years, and now is written in a 37-character Cyrillic script.
