| |
---|---|
Total population | |
2–2.5 million. [1] | |
Regions with significant populations | |
Canada | 942,170 (2021) [2] [a] |
United Kingdom | 700,000 (2006) [3] |
United States | 253,740 [4] |
Australia | 239,033 (2021) [5] |
Malaysia | 56,400 (2019) [6] |
Philippines | 50,000 (2016) [7] |
New Zealand | 34,227 (2018) [8] |
Sweden | 24,000 (2013) [9] |
Bangladesh | 23,700 (2019) [10] |
Germany | 18,000 (2020) [11] |
Nepal | 10,000 (2019) [12] |
Languages | |
Punjabi • Hindi-Urdu • English • others | |
Religion | |
Sikhism (incl. Nanakpanthi) • Islam • Hinduism • Christianity | |
Related ethnic groups | |
Indian diaspora, Pakistani diaspora, South Asian diaspora |
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The Punjabi diaspora consists of the descendants of ethnic Punjabis who emigrated out of the Punjab region in the northern part of the South Asia to the rest of the world. Punjabis are one of the largest ethnic groups in both the Pakistani and Indian diasporas. The Punjabi diaspora numbers around the world has been given between 3 and 5 million, mainly concentrated in Britain, Canada, the United States, Western Europe, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Australia and New Zealand. [1]
Many families from Punjab, Pakistan migrated to erstwhile East Pakistan (present-day Bangladesh) as it was one country at the time. Some of these families chose to remain in Bangladesh after its independence. One such example is the family of Bangladeshi-Punjabi cricketer Junaid Siddique.
Punjabis migrated to Australia from other parts of the Punjabi diaspora, as well from the state of Punjab itself. The Majority were Sikh and Hindu Punjabis are a minority. [13]
Punjabis make up approximately 2.6% of the Canadian population as per the 2021 Canadian Census. [14] The largest Punjabi community in Canada is in Ontario, with 397,867 Punjabis as of 2021 (making up 2.84% of the overall population), while British Columbia is home to approximately 315,000 Punjabis (making up 6.41% of the overall population). [15] 85% of South Asians in British Columbia are Punjabi Sikhs, [16] including former premier of British Columbia, Ujjal Dosanjh and leader of the federal New Democratic Party (NDP), MP for Burnaby South, Jagmeet Singh.
Province/territory | 2021 [2] | 2016 [17] | 2011 [18] | 2006 [19] | 2001 [20] | 1996 [21] | 1991 [22] | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Pop. | % | Pop. | % | Pop. | % | Pop. | % | Pop. | % | Pop. | % | Pop. | % | |
Ontario | 397,865 | 2.84% | 282,065 | 2.13% | 238,130 | 1.87% | 201,720 | 1.68% | 146,250 | 1.3% | 99,135 | 0.93% | 64,105 | 0.64% |
British Columbia | 315,000 | 6.41% | 244,485 | 5.36% | 213,315 | 4.9% | 184,590 | 4.53% | 142,785 | 3.69% | 112,365 | 3.05% | 77,830 | 2.4% |
Alberta | 126,385 | 3.03% | 90,485 | 2.27% | 62,815 | 1.74% | 44,480 | 1.37% | 28,460 | 0.97% | 20,660 | 0.77% | 15,165 | 0.6% |
Manitoba | 42,820 | 3.28% | 22,900 | 1.85% | 12,555 | 1.05% | 7,600 | 0.67% | 6,305 | 0.57% | 5,445 | 0.49% | 4,150 | 0.38% |
Quebec | 34,290 | 0.41% | 17,860 | 0.22% | 14,480 | 0.19% | 15,435 | 0.21% | 13,050 | 0.18% | 9,155 | 0.13% | 4,850 | 0.07% |
Saskatchewan | 13,310 | 1.21% | 8,300 | 0.78% | 3,250 | 0.32% | 1,210 | 0.13% | 925 | 0.1% | 760 | 0.08% | 635 | 0.07% |
Nova Scotia | 6,730 | 0.7% | 1,010 | 0.11% | 800 | 0.09% | 625 | 0.07% | 525 | 0.06% | 765 | 0.09% | 705 | 0.08% |
New Brunswick | 2,475 | 0.33% | 205 | 0.03% | 115 | 0.02% | 130 | 0.02% | 135 | 0.02% | 80 | 0.01% | 55 | 0.01% |
Prince Edward Island | 1,550 | 1.03% | 185 | 0.13% | 40 | 0.03% | 15 | 0.01% | 0 | 0% | 30 | 0.02% | 90 | 0.07% |
Newfoundland and Labrador | 1,040 | 0.21% | 485 | 0.09% | 115 | 0.02% | 150 | 0.03% | 150 | 0.03% | 140 | 0.03% | 235 | 0.04% |
Yukon | 490 | 1.24% | 150 | 0.43% | 105 | 0.31% | 100 | 0.33% | 90 | 0.32% | 95 | 0.31% | 50 | 0.18% |
Northwest Territories | 175 | 0.43% | 105 | 0.26% | 30 | 0.07% | 25 | 0.06% | 35 | 0.09% | 60 | 0.09% | 65 | 0.11% |
Nunavut | 30 | 0.08% | 15 | 0.04% | 15 | 0.05% | 10 | 0.03% | 10 | 0.04% | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
Canada | 942,170 | 2.59% | 668,240 | 1.94% | 545,730 | 1.65% | 456,090 | 1.46% | 338,715 | 1.14% | 248,695 | 0.87% | 167,930 | 0.62% |
The Punjabi Sikh diaspora in Germany is around 15,000-21,000.
In 2012, around 2000 farmers from Punjab, India migrated to Georgia to farm. [23] As of 2018 about 200 of them are still living in Tsnori, a town in Kakheti region. [24]
Among Hong Kong Indian adolescents, Punjabi is the third most common language other than Cantonese. [25] The Punjabis were influential in the military, and in line with the British military thinking of the time (namely, the late 19th century and early 20th century) Punjabi Sikhs, Punjabi Hindus and Punjabi Muslims formed two separate regiments. The regiments were as follows:
In 1939, Hong Kong's police force included 272 Europeans, 774 Indians (mainly Punjabis) and 1140 Chinese. [26] Punjabis dominated Hong Kong's police force until the 1950s. [27]
From the 2006 government by-census results, it shows a population of roughly 20,444 Indians and roughly 11,111 Pakistanis residing at the former British territory. [28]
Around 60 Punjabi Sikh families resides in Iran. [29] Punjabi language is also taught at Kendriya Vidyalaya Tehran, an Indian co-educational school in Baharestan District, Tehran. [30]
There are 71,000 Punjabis. In Japan 98% of the Punjabis are Sikh and 1.5% of the Punjabis are Christian. [31]
Most Kenyan Asians are Gujaratis, but the second largest group are Punjabis. [32] All three major religious groups (Sikh, Muslim and Hindu) are represented in the Punjabi population. The artisan Ramgharia caste used to be the largest group amongst the Sikhs. [33]
Although most Malaysian Indians are Tamils, there were also many Punjabis that immigrated to Malaysia. They are known to be the third largest Indian ethnic group in Malaysia, after the Tamils and Malayalees. According to Amarjit Kaur as of 1993 there were 60, 000 Punjabis in Malaysia. [34] Robin Cohen estimates the number of Malaysian Sikhs as 30, 000 (as of 1995). [26] Recent figures state that there are 130,000 Sikhs in Malaysia. [35]
In New Zealand, Punjabis are one of the largest group of Indian New Zealanders. [36]
In the Gulf states, the largest group among Pakistani expatriates are the Punjabis. [37]
Punjabis are the second largest Indian group in Indonesia, right after Tamil people, some of them are known as film producer, politician and athlete such as Manoj Punjabi, H. S. Dillon, Gurnam Singh, Ayu Azhari, and Musa Rajekshah. Punjabis in Indonesia are majority following Sikhism or Islam, according to some source, the population of Punjabi are estimate about 35,000 to 60,000. [38]
The Philippines has over 50,000 Punjabi Indians as recently as the year 2016, not including illegal Punjabi Indian immigrants. This makes the Philippines having the 6th highest population of Punjabi Indians in the world. [39]
The third largest group among Indo-Singaporeans in 1980 were Punjabis (after Tamils - who form a majority of Indo-Singaporeans - and Malayalis), at 7.8% of the Indo-Singaporean population. [40]
Most Indians in Thailand are Punjabis. [41]
The Sikh community in Trinidad and Tobago, numbering at about 300, consists of the descendants of the few Punjabis who came during the indentureship period and Punjabi Sikhs who came in the twentieth and twenty-first century. The Sikhs have a gurdwara in Tunapuna dating back to 1929. There were also Punjabi Hindus and Punjabi Muslims who came during the indentured period as well in the twentieth and twenty-first century. [42] Bhangra has also had a minor impact on the local Indian Bhojpuri-derived chutney music, with few songs mixing bhangra rhythms to create a chutney bhangra style. [43]
The founder of Solo Beverage Company, one of the largest beverage companies in Trinidad and Tobago, Serjad Makmadeen (a.k.a. Joseph Charles), was born in 1910 in Princes Town to Makmadeen, a Punjabi Muslim who emigrated from Punjab in then British India to Trinidad, and his wife Rosalin Jamaria, a Dougla (mixed Indian and African heritage) who emigrated from Martinique. [44] One of the most notorious gangster and pirate of the twentieth century in Trinidad and Tobago and the wider Caribbean, Boysie Singh was born in Woodbrook, Port of Spain in 1908 to a Punjabi Hindu father who immigrated as a fugitive to Trinidad to escape persecution in British India. [45] [46] [47] Ranjit Kumar, one of the founding fathers of Trinidad and Tobago, a "Moulder of the Nation", and an Indo-Trinidadian and Tobagonian civil rights activist, was born in 1912 in Rawalpindi, Punjab, British India (present-day Punjab, Pakistan) to a Punjabi Hindu family. [48] He immigrated to Trinidad and Tobago in 1935 to distribute the first Indian films there and later became an engineer in the Trinidad and Tobago Works Department, where he was responsible for constructing numerous major roads and irrigation and drainage systems. He was also an alderman on the Port of Spain City Council and the founder of the Challenger newspaper, educating the public on engineering, irrigation and flooding problems. [49]
In the United Kingdom, around two-thirds of direct migrants from South Asia were Punjabi. The remaining third is mostly Gujarati and Bengali. [50] They form a majority of both the South Asian British Sikh and Hindu communities.
Most "twice-migrants" - a term describing South Asian descendants who migrated to the United Kingdom not directly from South Asia (mainly from the Indian diaspora in Southeast Africa and other British Colonies) were also Punjabi or Gujarati. [51]
United Kingdom is also known as the birthplace of bhangra music, a style of non traditional Punjabi music created by the Punjabi diaspora.[ citation needed ]
The earliest South Asian immigrants to the United States were Punjabis, who mostly immigrated to the West Coast, particularly California. [52] Half of Pakistani Americans are Punjabis. [53] 85% of the early Indian immigrants to the US were Sikhs, although they were incorrectly branded by White Americans as "Hindus". [54] 90% of Indians who settled in the Central Valley of California were Punjabi Sikhs. [55] The first Asian American and member of a non-Abrahamic faith elected to the US Congress was Dalip Singh Saund, a Punjabi Sikh.
Sikhs are an ethnoreligious group who adhere to Sikhism, a religion that originated in the late 15th century in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent, based on the revelation of Guru Nanak. The term Sikh has its origin in the Sanskrit word śiṣya, meaning 'seeker', 'disciple' or 'student'.
The Punjabis are an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group associated with the Punjab region, comprising areas of northwestern India and eastern Pakistan. They generally speak Standard Punjabi or various Punjabi dialects on both sides.
Vaisakhi, also known as Baisakhi, marks the first day of the month of Vaisakh and is traditionally celebrated annually on 13 April and sometimes 14 April. It is seen as a spring harvest celebration primarily in Punjab and Northern India. Whilst it is culturally significant as a festival of harvest, in many parts of India, Vaisakhi is also the date for the Indian Solar New Year.
Punjabi Hindus are adherents of Hinduism who identify ethnically, linguistically, culturally, and genealogically as Punjabis and are natives of the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent. Punjabi Hindus are the second-largest religious group of the Punjabi community, after the Punjabi Muslims. While Punjabi Hindus mostly inhabit the Indian state of Punjab, as well as Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, and Chandigarh today, many have ancestry across the greater Punjab region, which was partitioned between India and Pakistan in 1947.
Indian Sikhs number approximately 21 million people and account for 1.7% of India's population as of 2011, forming the country's fourth-largest religious group. The majority of the nation's Sikhs live in the northern state of Punjab, which is the only Sikh-majority administrative division in the world.
Most of the 25–30 million followers of Sikhism, the world's fifth-largest religion live in the northern Indian state of Punjab, the only Sikh-majority administrative division on Earth, but Sikh communities exist on every inhabited continent. Sizeable Sikh populations in countries across the world exist in India (20,833,116), Canada (~771,800), England (~520,100), the United States (~280,000), Italy (~220,000), and Australia (~210,400), while countries with the largest proportions of Sikhs include Canada (2.12%), India (1.72%), New Zealand (1.07%), Cyprus (~1.1%) England (0.92%), and Australia (0.83%).
The Sikh diaspora is the modern Sikh migration from the traditional area of the Punjab region of South Asia. Sikhism is a religion native to this region. The Sikh diaspora is largely a subset of the Punjabi diaspora.
Indian Canadians are Canadians who have ancestry from India. The term East Indian is sometimes used to avoid confusion with Indigenous groups. Categorically, Indian Canadians comprise a subgroup of South Asian Canadians which is a further subgroup of Asian Canadians. As of the 2021 census, Indians are the second largest non-European ethnic group in the country group after Chinese Canadians and form the fastest growing national origin in Canada. Canada's census only counts citizens and permanent residents, and does not include non-permanent or temporary residents.
Punjab is a state in northwestern India. Forming part of the larger Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent, the state is bordered by the Indian states of Himachal Pradesh to the north and northeast, Haryana to the south and southeast, and Rajasthan to the southwest; by the Indian union territories of Chandigarh to the east and Jammu and Kashmir to the north. It shares an international border with Punjab, a province of Pakistan to the west. The state covers an area of 50,362 square kilometres, which is 1.53% of India's total geographical area, making it the 19th-largest Indian state by area out of 28 Indian states. With over 27 million inhabitants, Punjab is the 16th-largest Indian state by population, comprising 23 districts. Punjabi, written in the Gurmukhi script, is the most widely spoken and the official language of the state. The main ethnic group are the Punjabis, with Sikhs (57.7%) and Hindus (38.5%) forming the dominant religious groups. The state capital, Chandigarh, is a union territory and also the capital of the neighbouring state of Haryana. Three tributaries of the Indus River — the Sutlej, Beas, and Ravi — flow through Punjab.
Punjabi Americans are Americans whose ancestry originates wholly or partly from the Punjab region of India and Pakistan. There are over 300,000 Punjabi Americans, many of whom were Sikhs, Ravidassias from British Punjab who first settled in California's Central Valley.
Overseas Indians, officially Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) and People of Indian Origin (PIOs) are Indians who reside or originate outside of India. According to the Government of India, Non-Resident Indians are citizens of India who currently are not living in India, while the term People of Indian Origin refers to people of Indian birth or ancestry who are citizens of countries other than India. Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI) is given to People of Indian Origin and to persons who are not People of Indian Origin but married to Indian citizen or People of Indian Origin. Persons with OCI status are known as Overseas Citizens of India (OCIs). The OCI status is a permanent visa for visiting India with a foreign passport.
Pakistanis are the citizens and nationals of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Pakistan is the fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the second-largest Muslim population as of 2023. As much as 90% of the population follows Sunni Islam. A majority of around 97% of Pakistanis are Muslims. The majority of Pakistanis natively speak languages belonging to the Indo-Iranic family.
Indian Argentines, also known as Indo-Argentines, are Argentines who have predominantly or total Indian ancestry. There is a small community of Indians in Argentina who are mainly immigrants from India and the neighboring countries in South America and the Caribbean with Indo-Caribbean influence and some of whom were born in Argentina and are of Indian heritage, related to the Indo-Aryan and Dravidian peoples, so the term can also include descendants of Pakistanis, Nepalis, Bengalis and Sinhalese.
Punjabiyat, meaning "Punjabiness", is a movement amongst Punjabis that supports closer links with their cultural traditions and lifestyle. It also supports language revitalization of Punjabi.
South Asian Canadians in Metro Vancouver are the third-largest pan-ethnic group in the region, comprising 369,295 persons or 14.2 percent of the total population as of 2021. Sizable communities exist within the city of Vancouver along with the adjoining city of Surrey, which houses one of the world's largest South Asian enclaves.
Punjabi Muslims are Punjabis who are adherents of Islam. With a population of more than 112 million, they are the third-largest predominantly Islam-adhering Muslim ethnicity in the world, after Arabs and Bengalis.
Punjabi nationalism is an ideology which emphasizes that the Punjabis are one nation and promotes the cultural unity of Punjabis around the world. The demands of the Punjabi nationalist movement are linguistic, cultural, economic and political rights.
British Punjabis are citizens or residents of the United Kingdom whose heritage originates wholly or partly in the Punjab, a region in the Indian subcontinent, which is divided between India and Pakistan. Numbering 700,000 in 2006, Punjabis represent the largest ethnicity among British Asians. They are a major sub-group of the British-Indian and British Pakistani communities.
Punjabi Christians are adherents of Christianity who identify ethnically, linguistically, culturally, and genealogically as Punjabis. They are mainly found in the Pakistani province of Punjab, forming the largest religious minority. They are one of the four main ethnoreligious communities of the Punjab region with the others being Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus. Punjabi Christians are traditionally divided into various castes, and are largely descendants of Hindus who converted to Christianity during the British Raj in colonial India.
Punjabi Malaysians are people of full or partial Punjabi descent who were born in or immigrated to Malaysia. Originating from the Punjab region of present-day India and Pakistan, Punjabi immigration to Malaysia began in the 19th century from what was then British India to British Malaya. The Punjabi Malaysian community today numbers over 100,000 – the majority of whom are Sikhs, although there are also sizeable Muslim, Hindu and Christian minorities. They form the largest Punjabi diaspora group in Southeast Asia, while within Malaysia, Punjabis are the fourth largest ethnicity of Indian or South Asian descent after the Tamils, Malayalis and Telugus.
We now estimate the Punjabi community at about 700,000, with Punjabi established as the second language certainly in London and possibly within the United Kingdom.