Projecting Cluster Populations to 2050

Joshua Project organizes People Groups into Clusters. Whereas there are thousands of people groups, there are only about 255 clusters. These clusters of groups are related to each other, and generally fall into one of three categories: a cluster that’s nearly all one group (e.g. Koreans), a group with a very large majority group and a few small minority groups (e.g. Turkic), and a cluster that’s made up of lots of small groups somewhat related to each other.

For each cluster, I calculated the portion of the population of that cluster’s constituent groups in each of the various UN regions. I then grabbed the UN region’s population in 2025 and 2050, and calculated what the Cluster’s population would be if it’s percentage of the region remained the same (this is a big assumption, but it’s a doable initial one). This helps us to see which clusters generally get bigger or remain the same or smaller, based on fluctuations in regional populations.

The result, for the least-reached clusters, is the following. It’s interesting to see where the remaining task could get bigger, and where it might even shrink.

PeopleCluster LR TOTAL 2015 TOTAL 2025 TOTAL 2050
Aceh of Sumatra Y 4,346,000 4,805,146 6,050,321
Afar Y 3,136,000 4,134,919 9,309,380
Aimaq Y 1,643,000 1,839,059 2,402,812
Altaic Y 398,330 411,338 399,688
Arab, Arabian Y 25,841,900 30,393,189 46,764,611
Arab, Hassaniya Y 5,750,800 7,257,711 15,490,037
Arab, Libyan Y 4,380,600 5,200,611 8,350,225
Arab, Maghreb Y 70,293,300 83,087,648 132,186,860
Arab, Shuwa Y 4,471,000 5,858,573 13,390,174
Arab, Sudan Y 35,004,100 41,683,948 67,637,840
Arab, Yemeni Y 25,211,200 29,762,355 46,253,815
Assamese Y 5,116,300 5,726,827 7,482,354
Atlantic-Wolof Y 6,776,900 8,731,480 19,778,683
Azerbaijani Y 31,378,500 35,762,555 49,867,141
Bali-Sasak Y 8,619,700 9,530,353 11,999,990
Baloch Y 13,971,800 15,712,798 20,872,556
Banjar of Kalimantan Y 5,550,000 6,136,346 7,726,480
Bedouin, Arabian Y 20,639,800 24,328,199 37,570,507
Bedouin, Saharan Y 3,551,100 4,218,334 6,778,349
Beja Y 3,763,000 4,502,722 7,445,270
Bengali Y 349,886,480 391,599,171 511,579,642
Berber-Saharan Y 1,000,800 1,189,768 1,921,837
Berber-Kabyle Y 6,552,300 7,663,757 11,866,540
Berber-Riff Y 1,867,100 2,173,351 3,325,333
Berber-Shawiya Y 2,495,500 2,920,232 4,530,504
Bhil Y 20,507,300 22,954,431 29,990,984
Bhojpur-Maithili Y 13,070,500 14,630,200 19,115,005
Bhutanese Y 633,900 706,040 907,605
Bouyei Y 3,202,000 3,336,271 3,303,882
Bugi-Makassar of Sulawesi Y 11,101,600 12,274,460 15,455,188
Burmese Y 36,093,800 39,907,763 50,262,093
Kanuri-Saharan Y 11,021,400 14,295,126 32,530,536
Chinese-Hui Y 14,590,700 15,207,445 15,074,497
Filipino, Muslim Y 5,243,000 5,796,912 7,299,088
Fulani / Fulbe Y 39,826,400 51,778,450 119,435,539
Gond Y 20,707,400 23,178,409 30,283,621
Gorontalo of Sulawesi Y 1,211,600 1,339,603 1,686,739
Guera-Naba of Chad Y 494,700 673,789 1,702,765
Gujarati Y 60,034,900 67,457,391 89,882,151
Hausa Y 44,084,800 57,165,245 131,175,276
Hindi Y 368,513,000 412,492,911 539,090,967
Japanese Y 127,116,700 132,383,933 130,985,726
Jat Y 72,051,100 80,648,941 105,371,422
Jews Y 14,763,810 16,445,214 22,236,993
Kannada Y 32,449,800 36,320,918 47,450,738
Kashmiri Y 10,301,190 11,530,373 15,064,710
Kazakh Y 15,440,200 17,581,824 23,474,661
Kyrgyz Y 4,865,900 5,606,273 7,707,921
Kurd Y 35,525,900 41,262,526 61,080,972
Lampung of Sumatra Y 1,755,000 1,940,412 2,443,238
Lao Y 3,782,200 4,172,441 5,240,330
Li Y 1,897,000 1,973,886 1,942,305
Madura of Java Y 7,678,000 8,489,164 10,688,994
Maldivian Y 416,100 465,753 608,527
Malinke Y 11,083,800 14,342,111 32,770,508
Malinke-Bambara Y 6,143,700 7,926,202 17,995,310
Malinke-Jula Y 2,385,400 3,090,072 7,077,356
Marathi-Konkani Y 65,703,200 73,562,646 96,239,510
Melayu of Sumatra Y 6,497,660 7,184,124 9,045,774
Minangkabau-Rejang of Sumatra Y 7,613,000 8,417,297 10,598,504
Mongolian Y 12,058,300 12,508,836 12,254,652
Musi of Sumatra Y 4,548,000 5,028,487 6,331,537
Nepali-Pahari Y 14,583,100 16,321,105 21,329,696
Nosu Y 3,246,000 3,377,561 3,323,522
Nubian Y 2,708,070 3,228,471 5,263,967
Nuristan Y 350,900 392,773 513,175
Ogan of Sumatra Y 562,000 621,374 782,393
Oriya Y 18,235,700 20,410,037 26,660,116
South Asian, other Y 26,393,730 29,492,319 39,288,801
Ouaddai-Fur Y 3,982,100 5,032,096 10,256,077
Parsee Y 161,200 178,605 228,687
Pasemah of Sumatra Y 1,667,000 1,843,115 2,320,728
Pashtun Y 51,767,700 57,966,715 75,878,654
Persian Y 55,075,300 61,741,642 81,215,549
Punjabi Y 96,734,080 108,324,807 141,898,235
Rajasthan Y 24,943,160 27,906,864 36,436,671
South Himalaya Y 6,317,740 7,071,160 9,236,822
Shan Y 4,748,800 5,250,838 6,612,793
Sindhi Y 15,854,300 17,775,839 23,413,881
Somali Y 23,521,100 30,750,306 67,775,039
Songhai Y 6,475,400 8,390,981 19,230,323
Soninke Y 3,055,900 3,948,208 8,991,717
Sunda-Betawi of Java Y 44,564,000 49,272,092 62,040,158
Susu Y 1,716,600 2,224,584 5,099,561
Tai Y 8,308,700 8,908,095 10,001,348
Kadai Y 118,100 124,391 129,428
Tajik Y 9,269,900 10,709,178 14,845,388
Talysh Y 923,900 1,038,205 1,376,015
Telugu Y 62,350,990 69,813,114 91,337,204
Thai Y 55,184,900 60,991,902 76,744,746
Tibetan Y 6,381,180 6,667,037 6,686,514
Tuareg Y 3,397,100 4,371,184 9,802,974
Tukangbesi of Sulawesi Y 1,233,580 1,363,905 1,717,339
Turkish Y 60,819,300 71,042,767 107,354,809
Turkmen Y 8,046,100 9,235,549 12,734,284
Urdu Muslim Y 45,165,900 50,555,536 66,053,053
Uyghur Y 15,590,100 16,553,146 17,785,355
Uzbek Y 30,707,800 35,483,588 49,253,763
Yao-Mien Y 6,266,000 6,567,294 6,686,304
Zhuang Y 19,437,500 20,442,178 21,128,517
Unclassified Y 3,200 3,440 4,099
Luri-Bakhtiari Y 5,445,000 6,101,689 8,004,653
Bantu, Swahili Y 5,902,500 7,654,689 16,568,128
Banjara Y 7,694,000 8,612,123 11,252,121
Domari Y 3,679,700 4,274,762 6,387,264
Bania Y 44,371,300 49,666,117 64,890,987
Brahmin Y 94,997,500 106,333,530 138,929,477
Rajput Y 90,704,600 101,528,359 132,651,308