As of 2011 the population of Abkhazia is made up of ethnic Abkhaz (50.71%), Georgians (mostly Mingrelians) (17.93%), Hamshemin Armenians (17.39%), Russians (9.17%) and Greeks (0.6%).
[2][8] The ethnic composition of Abkhazia in past and current times plays a central role in the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict.
The earliest reliable records for Abkhazia are the Family Lists compiled in 1886, according to which the Sukhum Okrug (district of the Kutais Governorate of the Caucasus Viceroyalty of the Russian Empire) population was 68,773 of which 4,166 were Georgians (3,558 Mingrelians), 28,323 Abkhaz, 30,640 Samurzaq’anoans, 2,149 Greeks, 1,090 Armenians, 1,090 Russians, 637 Estonians.
Besides the proof offered by the table, we have additional evidence in the fact that Samurzaq’anoans and Abkhaz are kept apart quite neatly.
According to the 1917 agricultural census organized by the Russian Provisional Government, Georgians and Abkhaz composed 41.7% (54,760) and 30,4% (39,915) of the rural population of Abkhazia respectively.
[11] In 2008 almost all of the circa 2000 Svans in the upper Kodori Valley fled Abkhazia when this tract of land was conquered by the Abkhazian army during the August war.
The Abkhazian authorities have appealed for the Svan refugees to return, but by late March 2009 only 130 people continued to live in the upper Kodori Valley.
[13] In August 2013, the State Committee for Repatriation announced that since 1993, 7365 diaspora members had returned to Abkhazia, of which 4268 from Turkey, 494 from Syria, 107 from Egypt and Jordan and 2496 from Russia and other countries.