Big leap in Malay population

Big leap in Malay population

MALAYSIA: Latest census showed on Wednesday that Malays and other indigenous groups make up 65.1 percent of the total population, an increase of 4.5 percent since the last count in 1991.

Ethnic Chinese dropped from 28.1 to 26.0 percent of the total of 23.27 million people, while ethnic Indians were down from 7.9 percent to 7.7 percent, according to newspaper reports of last year's census results.

The number of Muslims increased from 58.6 percent in 1991 to 60.4 percent. Buddhism was the second largest religion with 19.2 percent, followed by Christianity (9.1 percent) and Hinduism (6.3 percent).

The growth rate was 2.6 percent, taking the population from 18.38 million in 1991 to 23.27 million now. A census is carried out every 10 years. --AFP