Population
According to
Countryaah data, the average population density is 403 residents per km
2. However, the population is highly concentrated
in the more fertile highlands between 1,500 and 1,800 meters
above sea level. The former capital Bujumbura (374,800
residents, 2010) is the dominant city.
Burundi's population consists mainly of hutu, tutsi and
twee. Hutu (8.7 million), who is a farming bantu, has lived
here since the 9th century. They make up 82 percent of the
population, but for several centuries they have been
dominated by the Nilotic Shepherd Tutsi (1.4 million), who
in the 15th century began to immigrate from the region
around the Nile Valley and Ethiopia.
Two are called the 40,000 pygmies who were the original
residents of the area and who until recently have lived as
hunters and collectors, in addition to the exchange of goods
with hutu and tutsi. Although twos in today's Burundi are
recognized as a separate population group, they are both
discriminated against and marginalized. Due to the
decomposition of forests to become agricultural land, many
branches are forced to seek new sources of supply; Pottery
has become an important opportunity for their survival.
The rule of the Tutsi people was based on a contract
system for land and livestock, which was lent to the
livestock-free hutu. From the 17th century, Tutsi also
developed a political system of control through a feudal
state, in which members of aristocratic clans competed for
chief positions under the sacred king (mwami). Like
many other African shepherds, Tutsi has also kept its
distance to neighboring farmers through an effective war
organization and one of aristocratic values embedded in
self-confidence.
Although both hutu and twee were subjected to Tutsi's
dominion, it was between the resident, hack-using Hutu and
the nomadizing, land-demanding Tutsi that the most tangible
animosity developed. It culminated in the hutu revolt in
1959. Since then, political power in independent Burundi has
alternated between hutu and Tutsi, occasionally in
connection with veritable massacres, including in the form
of genocide in 1972 and 1993. See also State Condition and
Politics.
Language
All ethnic groups in the country speak the bantu language
rundi (kirundi), which is the official language together
with French. Tutsi and twee have thus abandoned their former
mother tongue.
Religion
In 1879, the first Catholic missionaries came to Burundi
(then Urundi). After the First World War until independence
in 1962, Burundi was a Belgian colony. Burundu is today a
secular democratic republic with a high degree of religious
freedom.
The early Catholic mission, the Belgian colonial rule and
a number of extensive evangelism campaigns have led to the
fact that today about 90% of the population is Christian, of
which 67% are said to be Catholics. Muslims make up about 5%
of the population and the rest profess to indigenous,
traditional African religion.
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