Islam in Latvia: history and Muslim population data

History of Islam in Latvia

The Republic of Latvia gained its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 and has an area of 64,589 sq km and its map is presented in Figure 4.2.3. There were only two Muslims in 1863 in the Kurland Governorate. The number of Muslims increased later due to Turkish prisoners of war brought by the Russian Empire from the Russian Turkish war of 1877-1878.

The 1897 Russian Empire census indicated that the Muslim population was 1,667 or 0.1% of the total population of Latvia in its current borders. This estimate is based on the data from the Governorate of Kurland which had all the Muslims, the Kreis of Wenden, Wolmar and Riga of Livonia Governorate and Uyezds of Dinaburgsky, Lucinsky and Rezhitsky of Vitebsk Governortae which was shared with Russia and Belarus.

The number of Muslims dropped as a result of Latvian independence from the Russian Empire in 1918 and remained less than 0.01% throughout its independence. Accordingly, the number of Muslims decreased from 115 in 1920, to 103 in 1925, to 81 in 1930, and to 66 in 1935. The numbers for 1920 and 1925 are based on ethnic data while data for 1930 and 1935 are the number of Muslims that was recorded in the census. The ethnic data is as follows: The number of ethnic Tatars was 115 in 1920; 72 in 1925; 43 in 1930; and 39 in 1935. The number of ethnic Turks was 24 in 1925; 28 in 1930; and 38 in 1935. The number of Persians was seven in 1925; eleven in 1930; and seventeen in 1935.

The Muslim population increased as a result of the Soviet occupation from 1944 to 1991. The Soviets carried out censuses since 1959 that collected ethnic affiliation demography of the population. The top fifteen Muslim ethnicities in Latvia from largest in number are Tatar, Azerbaijani, Uzbek, Kazakh, Bashkir, Lezghin, Chechen, Tajik, Turk, Kyrgyz, Avar, Turkmen, Lak, Afghan and Abkhaz. The number of members of each of these ethnicities since 1959 is provided in Table 4.2.3a. Based on ethnic censuses, the Muslim population increased to 3,597 or 0.2% in 1959, to 5,049 or 0.2% in 1970, to 6,862 or 0.3% in 1979, to 12,064 or 0.5% in 1989. The Muslim population continued to decrease since then after Latvia’s independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Accordingly, the Muslim population decreased to 6,812 or 0.3% in 2000, to 5,047 or 0.3% in 2015, then increased to 6,680 or 0.4% in 2020 and 6,721 or 0.4% in 2022.

Thus, assuming that the percentage of Muslims will increase by 0.05 of a percentage point per decade; then the Muslim population is expected to remain around 4,000 or less than 0.4% of the total population throughout this century.

Historical Muslim population dataset for Latvia

The figures below are from the CoMPS historical dataset. Population values are expressed in thousands; 2100 is a modelled projection, not a present-day count.

For the full time series and visualisation, use the interactive map above.