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Baloch people

Baloch
بلۏچ
A group of Baloch men
Total population
  • c. 10 million (2013)[1]
  • 3–5 million Baloch-speakers (Brill, 2011)[2]
Regions with significant populations
Pakistan8,117,795 (2023 census) [only includes those who speak Balochi as mother tongue][3]
Iran2 million (2021)[4]
Oman500,000[citation needed]
Afghanistan500,000–600,000[5]
Turkmenistan36,000[6]
Languages
Balochi, Brahui, various other languages of host regions spoken by splinter groups

Second language:

Persian (in Iran and Afghanistan), Urdu (in Pakistan), Pashto (in Afghanistan), English
Religion
Predominantly Islam (mainly Sunni Islam)

The Baloch (/bəˈloʊtʃ/ bə-LOHCH) or Baluch (/bəˈluːtʃ/ bə-LOOCH; Balochi: بلۏچ, romanized: Balòc, plural بلۏچانٚ) are a nomadic,[7][8][9][10] pastoral,[11][12][13] ethnic group which speaks the Western Iranic Balochi language[14] and is native to the Balochistan region of South and Western Asia, encompassing the countries of Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan. There are also Baloch diaspora communities in neighbouring regions, including in Central Asia, and the Arabian Peninsula.

The majority of the Baloch reside within Pakistan. About 50% of the total Baloch population live in the Pakistani province of Balochistan,[15] while 40% are settled in Sindh and a significant albeit smaller number reside in the Pakistani Punjab. They make up 3.6% of Pakistan's total population, and around 2% of the populations of both Iran and Afghanistan.[16]

  1. ^ "Iran Minorities 2: Ethnic Diversity". The Iran Primer. United States Institute of Peace. 3 September 2013. Baluchis number between 4 million in Iran. They are part of a wider regional population of about 10 million spread across Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.
  2. ^ Spooner, Brian (2011). "10. Balochi: Towards a Biography of the Language". In Schiffman, Harold F. (ed.). Language Policy and Language Conflict in Afghanistan and Its Neighbors. Brill. p. 319. ISBN 978-9004201453. It [Balochi] is spoken by three to five million people in Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, Oman and the Persian Gulf states, Turkmenistan, East Africa, and diaspora communities in other parts of the world.
  3. ^ "TABLE 11 : POPULATION BY MOTHER TONGUE, SEX, and RURAL/URBAN - 2023 Census" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 October 2024.
  4. ^ "Ethnologue report of Languages of Iran (2023)". Ethnologue. Retrieved 20 November 2023.
  5. ^ "Cultural Orientation Balochi" (PDF). Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center. 2019. p. 111. An estimated 500,000–600,000 Baloch live in southern Afghanistan, concentrated in southern Nimroz Province, and to a lesser degree in Helmand and Kandahar provinces.
  6. ^ Long, Roger D.; Singh, Gurharpal; Samad, Yunas; Talbot, Ian (8 October 2015). State and Nation-Building in Pakistan: Beyond Islam and Security. Routledge. p. 129. ISBN 978-1-317-44820-4.
  7. ^ Laura, Etheredge (15 January 2011). Persian Gulf States: Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates. The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc. p. 66. ISBN 978-1-61530-327-4. The Baloch are traditionally nomads, but settled agricultural existence is becoming more common; every chief has a fixed residence. The villages are collections of mud or stone huts; on the hills, enclosures of rough stone walls are covered with matting to serve as temporary habitations. The Baloch raise camels, cattle, sheep, and goats and engage in carpet making and embroidery. They engage in agriculture using simple methods and are chiefly Muslim.
  8. ^ Bashir, Shahzad; Crews, Robert D. (28 May 2012). Under the Drones. Harvard University Press. p. 140. ISBN 978-0-674-06476-8. In southwestern Afghanistan the Baloch have traditionally been nomads, and some of them continue to lead a nomadic way of life today. Over the course of the twentieth century most Baloch settled down in the southwest and started a sedentary way of life based on pastoralism and irrigated agriculture. Repeated droughts during the last two decades caused many Baloch to give up livestock farming and agriculture,
  9. ^ Gayer, Laurent (2014). Karachi: Ordered Disorder and the Struggle for the City. Oxford University Press. pp. 127_128. ISBN 978-0-19-935444-3. Lyari's first residents were Sindhi fishermen and Baloch nomads (pawans) from Makran, Lasbela and Kalat districts, flee- ing drought and tribal feuds. A first influx occurred around 1725, a few years before Sindhi banyas settled in Karachi and committed to expand it. A second wave of Baloch settlers arrived around 1770, when Karachi came under the control of the Khan of Kalat, following an accord between the Khan and the Kalhora rulers of Sindh. A third wave of Baloch migra- tion took place after 1795, following the annexation of the city by the Talpur rulers of Sindh, which attracted Baloch tribesmen from interior Sindh and the Seraiki belt, many of whom found employment as guards, particularly at the Manora fort.
  10. ^ Shahrani, M. Nazif (10 February 2018). Modern Afghanistan: The Impact of 40 Years of War. Indiana University Press. p. 276. ISBN 978-0-253-03026-9. According to one of the members of the group's lead- ing (Sardar) family whom I met in Pakistan in 2012, the reason for abandoning the settlements in southern Nimruz was that the Sanjerani landowners were threatened by the "communist regime" in Afghanistan in the 1980s. So the Sanjerani moved almost completely to Baloch areas in Pakistan and Iran. At the same time the Brahui, Baloch groups of pastoral nomads, established the main local mujahideen faction, the Jabhe-ye Nimruz and took over most of the for- mer property of the Sanjerani (see below).
  11. ^ Nahyan, Mansoor Bin Tahnoon Al; Hussain, Jamal; Ghafoor, Asad ul (9 May 2019). Tribes of Pakistan. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. p. 73. ISBN 978-1-5275-3439-1. The Baloch, like the Brahuis, are divided geographically into two groups, the Suleimani (northerners) and the Makrani (southerners) occupying the respective parts of the province, with the central areas inhabited by the Brahuis." Historically, they have also been a nomadic pastoral people living in the open and avoiding towns.
  12. ^ Phillips, David J. (2001). Peoples on the Move: Introducing the Nomads of the World. William Carey Library. p. 289. ISBN 978-0-87808-352-7. They are united by language and a common culture, and the name Baluch has the connotation of a tent-dwelling nomadic pastoralist, although most of them have never lived like that. The Baluch practice different combinations of agriculture and pastoralism.
  13. ^ Dong, Shikui; Kassam, Karim-Aly S.; Tourrand, Jean François; Boone, Randall B. (30 August 2016). Building Resilience of Human-Natural Systems of Pastoralism in the Developing World: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Springer. p. 4. ISBN 978-3-319-30732-9. Some pastoral groups in the world: (a) Tibetan in Qinghai, China; (b) Kirghiz in Badakhshan, Afghanistan: (c) Boran in Borana, Ethiopia; (d) Massai in Kenya; (e) Mongol in Inner Mongolia, China; (1) Tajik in Yangi Qala, Afghanistan; (g) Bedouin in Negev, Israel; (h) Baloch in northern Pakistan.
  14. ^ Zehi, Pirmohamad. "A Cultural Anthropology of Baluchis". Iran Chamber Society.
  15. ^ Blood, Peter, ed. "Baloch". Pakistan: A Country Study. Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress, 1995.
  16. ^ Central Intelligence Agency (2013). "The World Factbook: Ethnic Groups". Archived from the original on 16 November 2018. Retrieved 3 November 2014.

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