Population Table: Malaysia
Data as of 2024Population at national level from 1970 to 2024, by sex, age group and ethnicity. The preview table shows data for the latest year only, but you may download the data in full.
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How is this data produced?
Values for 1970, 1980, 1991, 2000, 2010 and 2020 are based on adjusted data from the Population Censuses conducted in those years. Values for all other years are intercensal mid-year population estimates. The intercensal estimates were generated using the cohort-component method, which estimates the latest year's population by taking the previous year's value, then adding births, subtracting deaths, and adding net migration. For a deeper understanding of the methodology, please refer to the Technical Notes.
What caveats I should bear in mind when using this data?
Values for breakdowns may be slightly different to totals when summed, due to rounding to one decimal place. Furthermore, caution should be exercised when using the dataset in full because the granularity of Malaysia's population data has been deepened over the years. Specficially, there are 3 differing ranges of granularity as follows:
- The data from 1991 onwards is the most granular, with ethnic group breakdowns providing differentiation between Malay and Other Bumiputera, as well as Other Citizen and Other Non-Citizen. Furthermore, the oldest age category is 85+, i.e. 85 years and above.
- The data from 1980-1990 contains a breakdown by ethnic group, but without differentiation between Malay and Other Bumiputera (i.e. there is only one Bumiputera category), or Other Citizen and Other Non-Citizen (i.e. there is only one residual category, Other). Furthermore, the 85+ age group is not present; the oldest age category is 80+.
- For data from 1970-1979, there is no breakdown by ethnic group. Furthermore, the 75+, 80+ and 85+ age groups are not present; the oldest age category is 70+.
Publication(s) using this data
OpenDOSM features a dashboard on the population of Malaysia.
Metadata
Dataset description
Population at national level from 1970 to 2024, by sex, age group and ethnicity. The preview table shows data for the latest year only, but you may download the data in full.
Variable definitions
- Date
- Sex
- Age Group
- Ethnicity
- Population ('000)
Name in Dataset | Variable | Definition |
|---|---|---|
date (Date) | Date | The date in YYYY-MM-DD format, with MM-DD set to 01-01 as this is annual data |
sex (Categorical) | Sex | Either both sexes ('both'), male ('male') or female ('female') |
age (Categorical) | Age Group | Either all age groups ('overall') or five-year age groups e.g. 0-4, 5-9, 10-14, etc. 85+ is the oldest category. |
ethnicity (Categorical) | Ethnicity | All ethnic groups ('overall'), Malay ('bumi_malay'), other Bumiputera ('bumi_other'), Chinese ('chinese'), Indian ('indian'), other citizens ('other_citizen'), or non-citizen residents ('other_noncitizen'). |
population (Float) | Population ('000) | Thousands of people ('000 people) |
Last updated:
31 Jul 2024, 12:00
Next update:
31 Jul 2025, 12:00
Data source(s)
- Department of Statistics Malaysia
URLs to dataset
License
This data is made open under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). A copy of the license is available Here.
Download
Data
Full Dataset (CSV)
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Full Dataset (Parquet)
Recommended for data scientists seeking to work with data via code.
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Code
Connect directly to the data with Python.
# If not already installed, do: pip install pandas fastparquet
import pandas as pd
URL_DATA = 'https://storage.dosm.gov.my/population/population_malaysia.parquet'
df = pd.read_parquet(URL_DATA)
if 'date' in df.columns: df['date'] = pd.to_datetime(df['date'])
print(df)Sample OpenAPI query
The following code is an example of how to make an API query to retrieve the data catalogue mentioned above. You can use different programming languages by switching the code accordingly. For a complete guide on possible query parameters and syntax, please refer to the official Open API Documentation.
import requests
import pprint
url = "https://api.data.gov.my/data-catalogue?id=population_malaysia&limit=3"
response_json = requests.get(url=url).json()
pprint.pprint(response_json)
Department of Statistics Malaysia
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