As of January 2018, the population of the five Central Asian countries, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan, reached a landmark figure of 71 million people. Uzbekistan, being the most populated country in the region, has a population of 32.12 million people, followed by Kazakhstan with 18.16 million people, while the population of Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan is 8.99 million, 6.2 million and 5.55 million, respectively.
Kanat Makhanov is a research fellow at the Eurasian Institute of the International H.A Yassawi Kazakh-Turkish University. He holds a BA in Business Economics from the KIMEP University from 2012. In 2014 he earned his Masters degree in Economics from the University of Vigo (Spain), completing his thesis on “Industrial Specialization in autonomous regions of Spain and Kazakhstan”. His main research interests are Spatial Economics, Economic Geography, Regional Economics, Human and Economic Geography.