This table provides population information for the fifteen successor states of the Soviet Union. While these figures do not provide a breakdown by national composition within each independent state, they do reveal the range in the sizes of these new states. The break up of the Soviet Union presented each population and government with unique challenges that were also shaped by the common history of the Soviet empire.

To see the associated Teaching Module on Nationalities in the USSR, click here.

Central Intelligence Agency, The World Fact Book, 2006, (Washington D.C.: CIA, 2006), wofact2006 (accessed July 9, 2008).