Pakistanis (Urdu: پاكِستانى قوم, romanized: Pākistānī Qaum, lit. 'Pakistani Nation') are the citizens and nationals of Pakistan, as well as their descendants in the Pakistani diaspora or the people who trace their ancestry to Pakistan. Constituting the fifth-largest national group in the world, Pakistan has a population of over 241.5 million, forming a multicultural society. Pakistan has the second-largest Muslim population in the world (as of 2023), sitting at 96 per cent; with significant Hindu, Christian, Ahmadi, Sikh, Zoroastrian and other religious minorities. The majority of Pakistanis natively speak languages belonging to the Indo-Iranic family, alongside a minority of Sino-Tibetan, Dravidian and isolate languages.
Located in South Asia, the country is also the source of a significantly large diaspora, most of whom reside in the Arab countries of the Persian Gulf, with an estimated population of 4.7 million. The second-largest Pakistani diaspora resides throughout both Northwestern Europe and Western Europe, where there are an estimated 2.4 million; over half of this figure resides in the United Kingdom (see British Pakistanis).
