What is the total number of Estonians in the world?
The number of Estonians, i.e. people of Estonian ethnicity, has been monitored in the censuses since 1881, and since 1990 it has been monitored annually. Estonians were the most numerous at the time of the 1934 census. Back then, Estonia had a total population of 1.1 million, of whom the majority, 992,520 people, were ethnic Estonians. In other words, at the census moment, the country was only 7,480 Estonians away from a million.
According to Statistics Estonia, the population of Estonia at the beginning of 2023 was 1,357,739, an increase of 2% (or 25,943 people) compared with a year earlier. But the number of ethnic Estonians in Estonia according to the 2021 census was about 920,000.
Statistics Estonia has estimated the number of Estonians living outside of Estonia is 191,838.
Taking into account that there were 919,693 ethnic Estonians living in Estonia at the beginning of 2023, the total number of Estonians in the world is 1,111,531. These figures, in turn, show that 83% of Estonians live in Estonia and nearly 17% reside abroad.
As these are estimates and various possible interpretations in the case of many countries, it is quite clear that the figures given are also approximate, but the general estimate – the total number of Estonians is 1.1 million and there are more than 900,000 Estonians living in Estonia –, is correct. Is this a record number of Estonians?
