Demography of Europe :: The W2N.net

Europe has a population of roughly 730 million, or about 11% of world population (as of 2005). Population growth is comparatively slow , and median age comparatively high in relation to the world's other continents.

Since the Renaissance, Europe has had a dominating influence in culture, economics and social movements in the world. European demography is important not only historically, but also in understanding current international relations and population issues.

Total population

In 2005 the population of Europe was estimated to be 731 million according to the United Nations,¹ which was slightly more than 11% of world population. The precise figure depends on the exact definition of the geographic extent of Europe. The population of the EU was 499 million as of 2008. Non-EU countries situated in Europe in their entirety² account for another 101 million. Five trans-continental countries³ have a total of 240 million people, of which about half reside in Europe proper.

A century ago, Europe had nearly a quarter of the world's population. The population of Europe has grown in the past century, but in other areas of the world (in particular Africa and Asia) the population has grown far more quickly. According to UN population projections, Europe's population may fall to about 7% of world population by 2050.¹ In the period 2000 to 2005, European population growth has been very slow (0.35% over five years, or 0.07% per year), a slight growth in Western Europe (mostly due to immigration) cancelled by a slight population decline in Eastern Europe, and the "medium variant" of UN population growth projections predicts that the 2005 value was the historic peak, followed by a beginning decline of total European population (while the "high variant" predicts continued slow population growth).

In 2005 the EU had an overall net gain from immigration of 1.8 million people, despite having one of the highest population densities in the world. This accounted for almost 85% of Europe's total population growth.⁴

Year	Population in thousands (medium variant projection)¹	high variant	low variant
1950	548,194
1960	605,201
1970	656,666
1980	693,170
1990	721,322
2000	728,501
2005	731,087
2010	730,478	736,830	724,107
2020	722,060	749,011	694,786
2030	706,908	754,357	659,381
2040	687,244	762,864	617,036
2050	664,183	777,168	566,034

Population by country

According to different definitions, such as consideration of the concept of Central Europe, the following territories and regions may be subject to various other categorisations.

Name of region^a[›] and territory, with flag	Area (km²)	Population (1 July, 2002 est.)	Population density (per km²)	Capital
Åland (Finland)	1,552	26,008	16.8	Mariehamn
Albania	28,748	3,600,523	125.2	Tirana
Andorra	468	68,403	146.2	Andorra la Vella
Austria	83,858	8,169,929	97.4	Vienna
Armenia^k[›]	29,800	3,229,900	101	Yerevan
Azerbaijan^l[›]	86,600	8,621,000	97	Baku
Belarus	207,600	10,335,382	49.8	Minsk
Belgium	30,510	10,274,595	336.8	Brussels
Bosnia and Herzegovina	51,129	4,448,500	77.5	Sarajevo
Bulgaria	110,910	7,621,337	68.7	Sofia
Croatia	56,542	4,437,460	77.7	Zagreb
Cyprus^e[›]	9,251	788,457	85	Nicosia
Czech Republic	78,866	10,256,760	130.1	Prague
Denmark	43,094	5,368,854	124.6	Copenhagen
Estonia	45,226	1,415,681	31.3	Tallinn
Faroe Islands (Denmark)	1,399	46,011	32.9	Tórshavn
Finland	336,593	5,157,537	15.3	Helsinki
France^h[›]	547,030	59,765,983	109.3	Paris
Georgia^m[›]	69,700	4,661,473	64	Tbilisi
Germany	357,021	83,251,851	233.2	Berlin
Gibraltar (UK)	5.9	27,714	4,697.3	Gibraltar
Greece	131,940	10,645,343	80.7	Athens
Guernsey^d[›]	78	64,587	828.0	St. Peter Port
Hungary	93,030	10,075,034	108.3	Budapest
Iceland	103,000	307,261	2.7	Reykjavík
Ireland	70,280	4,234,925	60.3	Dublin
Isle of Man^d[›]	572	73,873	129.1	Douglas
Italy	301,230	58,751,711	191.6	Rome
Jersey^d[›]	116	89,775	773.9	Saint Helier
Kazakhstan^j[›]	2,724,900	15,217,711	5.6	Astana
Latvia	64,589	2,366,515	36.6	Riga
Liechtenstein	160	32,842	205.3	Vaduz
Lithuania	65,200	3,601,138	55.2	Vilnius
Luxembourg	2,586	448,569	173.5	Luxembourg
Republic of Macedonia	25,333	2,054,800	81.1	Skopje
Malta	316	397,499	1,257.9	Valletta
Moldova^b[›]	33,843	4,434,547	131.0	Chişinău
Monaco	1.95	31,987	16,403.6	Monaco
Montenegro	13,812	616,258	44.6	Podgorica
Netherlands^i[›]	41,526	16,318,199	393.0	Amsterdam
Norway	324,220	4,525,116	14.0	Oslo
Poland	312,685	38,625,478	123.5	Warsaw
Portugal^f[›]	91,568	10,409,995	110.1	Lisbon
Romania	238,391	21,698,181	91.0	Bucharest
Russia^c[›]	17,075,400	142,200,000	26.8	Moscow
San Marino	61	27,730	454.6	San Marino
Serbia^g[›]	88,361	9,663,742	109.4	Belgrade
Slovakia	48,845	5,422,366	111.0	Bratislava
Slovenia	20,273	1,932,917	95.3	Ljubljana
Spain	504,851	45,061,274	89.3	Madrid
Svalbard and Jan Mayen Islands (Norway)	62,049	2,868	0.046	Longyearbyen
Sweden	449,964	9,090,113	19.7	Stockholm
Switzerland	41,290	7,507,000	176.8	Bern
Turkey^n[›]	783,562	70,586,256	93	Ankara
Ukraine	603,700	48,396,470	80.2	Kiev
United Kingdom	244,820	61,100,835	244.2	London
Vatican City	0.44	900	2,045.5	Vatican City
Total	10,180,000^o[›]	731,000,000^o[›]	70

Age

Perhaps mirroring its declining population growth, European countries tend to have older populations overall. European countries had nine of the top ten highest median ages in national populations in 2005. Only Japan had an older population.⁶

Religion

Religion in Europe spans approximately 10,000 years of human settlement on the continent. It has developed from the earliest prehistoric spirituality via the Ancient Greek, Roman and Nordic faiths to the spread of the Abrahamic religions of Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Europe has a rich and diverse religious history, and its various faiths have been a major influence on European art, culture, philosophy and law. In modern times, the overwhelming majority of religious Europeans are Christian; the second-largest religion in Europe is Islam, followed by Judaism. Europe also has the largest number and proportion of agnostics and atheists in the Western world.

Ethnic groups

The largest ethnic groups of Europe are the Russians (with some 90 million settling in the European parts of Russia), followed by the Germans (76 million), French (63 million), Italians (58 million), English (45 million), Spanish (42 million), Poles (42 million) and the Ukrainians (41 million). The smallest ethnic group in Europe are the Maltese: Malta has a population of 419,285 and 95.3%⁷ is ethnically Maltese.

Non-European immigrant groups (Middle Eastern, African, Asian etc.) account for about 3% to 4% of European population or 22 to 30 million people.

Language

Europe has 30-40 major languages depending on definition. The European Union (EU), which currently excludes Norway and many eastern European countries, recognises 23 official languages as of 2007.⁹ According to the same source, the seven most natively spoken languages in the EU are (percentage of total European population¹⁰):

These figures change slightly when foreign language skills are taken into account. The list below shows the top eight European languages ordered by total number of speakers in the EU:¹¹

This makes German the most frequently spoken native language and English the most frequently second spoken language overall in the European Union, with German the second-most common language overall.

Foreign language skills

Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Denmark, Malta, Sweden, Slovenia, Belgium, and Finland are the EU countries with the most foreign language skills. This refers to all foreign languages. English is spoken most frequently in Malta, Sweden, Denmark, and the Netherlands. The largest countries in Europe have the following percentages of English language skills: 44% Germany, 32% France, 28% Italy, 22% Poland, 18% Spain. The countries with the least foreign language skills are the UK, Ireland, Italy and Spain.¹² ¹³

Extinct and endangered languages

Many languages have become extinct in Europe and the process is continuing. Languages that are already rated as extinct by the UNESCO Red Book include Old Prussian, Cornish, and two Jewish languages. Nearly extinct and seriously endangered languages include several Sami, Frisian, and regional Jewish languages, Tsakonian and Breton.¹⁴

Genetic origins

Homo sapiens appears in Europe some 40,000 years ago, with the Cro magnon settlement. Over the prehistoric period there was continual immigration to Europe, notably with the neolithic revolution.¹⁵

The vast majority of Europe’s inhabitants are of the European (or Caucasoid) geographic race, characterized by white or lightly pigmented skins and variability in eye and hair colour and by a number of biochemical similarities. ¹⁶.

Genetically, the main substructure within European populations is between the Atlantic ("Basque"), the Balkans ("Near East") and the Northern ("Finnic") poles. The main components in the European genomes appear to derive from ancestors whose features were similar to those of modern Basques and Near Easterners. The lowest degree of either Basque or Near Eastern admixture is found in Finland, whereas the highest values are, respectively, 70% ("Basque") in Spain and more than 60% ("Near Eastern") in the Balkans.[3][4]

A 2007 study using samples exclusively from Europe found an unusually high degree of European homogeneity: "there is low apparent diversity in Europe with the entire continent-wide samples only marginally more dispersed than single population samples elsewhere in the world." The main component of genetic differentiation in Europe was found to occur on a line from the north to the south-east (northern Europe to the Balkans), ¹⁷ with another east-west axis of differentiation across Europe.¹⁸

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