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This article describes and analyzes population patterns in Soviet Central Asia in the postwar period. Post-1979 trends during the 1980s are compared with trends in the intercensal periods of 1959-70 and 1970-9, as well as with those of 1951-9. Specific topics investigated include: overall population growth; the components of population growth: fertility, mortality, migration, and age composition. The population of Central Asia more than tripled between 1951 and 1989 and has grown much more rapidly than that of the Soviet Union as a whole, both overall and in every period since 1951. In fact, its growth rate has been more than double the national average in the overall 1951-89 period and the intercensal periods of 1959-90, 1970-9, and 1979-89. The peak intercensal annual growth rate, 3.4 percent, was reached between 1959 and 1970. Of the three immediate factors in the growth of the population of any area, the chief factors in the rapid growth of Central Asia in recent decades have been a relatively high fertility rate coupled with a relatively low mortality rate.