Demographics of Fiji

Indigenous Fijians, the native inhabitants of Fiji, are a mixture of Polynesian and Melanesian, resulting from the original migrations to the South Pacific over time. The Indo-Fijian population increased rapidly from the 61,000 people brought from the Indian subcontinent (modern day India, Bangladesh, Pakistan) between 1879 and 1916 to work in the sugarcane fields, many who later would lease/own the sugar cane plantations.

In 1977 The Economist reported that ethnic Fijians were a minority of 255,000, in a total population of 600,000 of which fully half were of Indian descent, with the remainder Chinese, European and of mixed ancestry.

The native Fijians live throughout the country, while the Indo-Fijians reside primarily near the urban centres and in the cane-producing areas of the two main islands. Nearly all of the indigenous Fijians are Christian, with some two-thirds being Methodist. The Indo-Fijians, by contrast, have a similar religious mix as India today: some 76.7% percent of the Indo-Fijians are Hindu, with a further almost 16% being Muslim and 6 percent Christian. There are also a few Sikhs.

A national census is supposed to be conducted every ten years, but the census intended for 2006 was postponed until 2007. Finance Minister Ratu Jone Kubuabola announced on 27 October 2005 that the Cabinet had decided that it would not be in the country's interest to have a census and a general election in the same year. "Peoples’ focus on the elections could have an impact on their cooperation with census officials", he said. The Statistics Office supported Kubuabola's announcement, saying that public interest in the general election would likely distract people's attention from the census, making it problematic to conduct.

Structure of the population