Late Tuesday, the outcry appeared to have forced the hand of President Hamid Karzai, whose office said he had fired the academy’s director, and Afghan officials said he had also dismissed three others in the academy.

The Hazara leader, the former warlord Hajji Mohammed Mohaqiq, said that the almanac estimated that Hazaras constituted only about 9 percent of the Afghan population and that Pashtuns made up 60 percent. He said that the almanac also called the Hazaras, who are Shiites, infidels, among other inflammatory things. He demanded that the book be withdrawn and called for the abolition of the academy, which is under the control of Mr. Karzai’s office.

“A corrupt circle of characters surround President Karzai who are preparing for a civil war after 2014,” he said.

The almanac is not yet in general circulation, and officials at the academy would not discuss whether Mr. Mohaqiq’s assertions were correct.

Experts say it is hard to determine the country’s ethnic makeup. The C.I.A. World Factbook, for instance, estimates that the Hazaras make up 9 percent of the country’s population, the same as the figure said to be in the almanac, though it puts the Pashtun population lower, at 42 percent. But that is based on old data — there is no official Afghan census, and the country has changed through the past 10 years of war and turmoil. Some prominent Hazaras argue that the ethnic group may represent more than 20 percent of the population, though that, too, can be seen as a politicized figure.