Abstract
The ethno-demographic situation in Kazakhstan has changed dramatically over the past 50 years. These changes determine the trends of further ethno-demographic and urbanization processes in Kazakhstan, thus, their research is of undoubted relevance. The purpose of this research is to explore the changes in the national composition of Kazakhstan’s population and the ratio of urban and rural population over the period from 1970 to 2020. The research concluded that until 1989, Kazakhs were the second most populous people, behind Russians in the first position. Urbanisation processes stagnated in the first years of Kazakhstan’s independence but revived again in the 2010s when Kazakhstan’s urban population increased again. The outflow of European ethnic groups from Kazakhstan to their historical lands in the first years of independence, and the state’s stimulation of repatriation of ethnic Kazakhs were among the main reasons for the change in Kazakhstan’s ethnic composition in the 1990s-2010s.