[13] In a report released by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) in September 2021, the level of urbanization in Kazakhstan is estimated to reach 69.1% by 2050.

The first census in Kazakhstan was conducted under Russian Imperial rule in 1897, which estimated population at round 4 million people.

Kazakhstan underwent significant urbanization during the first 50 years of the Soviet era, as the share of the rural population declined from more than 90% in the 1920s to less than 50% since the 1970s.

With a cohesive culture and national identity, they constituted an absolute majority on the land until colonization by the Russian empire.

In the 1890s, Russian peasants began to settle on the fertile lands of northern Kazakhstan, causing many Kazakhs to move eastwards into Chinese territory in search of new grazing grounds.

In 1930, as part of the first Five Year Plan, the Soviet Government decreed measures of force sedentarization of nomads and their incorporation into collectivized farms.

[36] Demographics did shift in the 1950s and 1960s, when, as part of Nikita Khrushchev's Virgin Lands Campaign, hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens relocated to the Kazakh steppes in order to farm.

According to 2024 estimates, the ethnic composition of Kazakhstan was approximately: 71% Kazakh, 14.9% Russian, 3.3% Uzbek, 1.9% Ukrainian, 1.5% Uyghur, 1.1% Tatar, 1.1% German, and <1% Korean, Turkish, Azerbaijani, Belarusian, Dungan, Kurdish, Tajik, Polish, Kyrgyz, Chechen.