Santiago, Pontevedra and A Coruña, however, are gaining population and adding nearly 3,800 more residents
01 Dec 2022. Updated at 4:37 p.m.
He Galician census it has lost almost 75,000 people in the last decade. Between the last known until yesterday, that of 2011, and the one published this Wednesday by the National Institute of Statistics (INE) referring to 2021, the community has gone from touching 2,773,000 inhabitants to accounting for less than 2.7 million, specific, 2,698,177 residents. And this drop in population is the trend in the vast majority of councils, because barely fifty can say that they have more neighbors today than ten years ago.
The big cities do not escape this trend. Although three have more inhabitants than in 2011, the other four have dwindled. In the case of Ferrol, dramatically. It is one of the twenty Spanish town halls with more than 10,000 inhabitants with the greatest population decline, specifically, falls 9.4%. It lost, in ten years, 6,762 residents, remaining slightly below 65,000, and falling fifteen places in the ranking of Spanish municipalities by population (now it is 117). Among the Galician cities, Ferrolana is the least populated.
The city of Ourense also decreases. With a population loss of 2.5% and of more than 2,700 inhabitants, it remains in a total of 104,578 neighbors (It is the 60th municipality in Spain and the third in Galicia). Meanwhile, Lugo down 0.5% (487 less neighbors), to stay with a population of 97.514 personas. It falls three places on the state list, to number 66, and also becomes the fifth Galician city in number of residents (previously it was the fourth).
Also Vigo loses residents, specifically 973 are left in the last decade, which represents a 0.3% drop. Nevertheless, it continues to be the most populated municipality in Galicia, with 294,650 residents and remains number 14 in Spain.
A Coruña, however, it falls one position in the Spanish ranking, going from 17 to 18, despite gaining inhabitants. The 2021 census gives you 245.541and 0.2% more than ten years before (adds 488 residents). It continues to be the second city with the largest population in Galicia.
The most important increase among the seven cities is experienced by Santiago. It grows 2.5%and adds 2,401 residents to its census, until it reaches 97.798. Thus, it overtakes Lugo and becomes the fourth most populous municipality in the community. It also improves its position in the state ranking, moving up two places to 65. Pontevedrafor its part, has 895 residents, and that 1.1% rise places it with 83,241 residentswhich make it the sixth Galician city by number of inhabitants, and number 87 in Spain (in 2011 it was 83).
The list of the 20 most populated municipalities in Galicia is completed with Narón (38,810 inhabitants), Vilagarcía de Arousa (37,495), Oleiros (36,874), Arteixo (32,914), Ames (32,062), Carballo (31,418), Culleredo (30,853) , Redondela (29,241), Ribeira (26,825), Cangas (26,719), Cambre (24,635), Marín (24,246), and Ponteareas (22,988).
Although the municipalities with the most inhabitants are all in the Atlantic provinces, Ourense sneaks two among those that have increased the most in population in the last decade. The municipalities with the most growth were San Cibrao das Viñas (up 17.5%), mino (13,4 %), The Porriño (12,2 %), Now (10,7 %), Ames (10,2 %) y barbados (10 %).
At the opposite extreme, the most pronounced falls were experienced by Calvos de Randín (lost 32.5%), San Juan de Rio (-27,2 %), Plane (-26,9 %), The Whites (-25,6 %), Castle of Miño (-24,6 %), y Gomesende (-24.6%), all councils from the interior of the community. Negueira de Muñizwith 222 inhabitants, remains as the least populated municipality in Galicia (despite the fact that there are ten more residents than in the 2011 census), followed by A Teixeira, with 339 residents, and Beade, with 382.
Galician residents, the third oldest in Spain
The one published by the INE has been the first batch of data derived from the 2021 census, the first that has been carried out by crossing data from different official administrative records such as the census, Social Security, the Tax Agency or the statistics of the Ministry of Education, instead of doing personal surveys. A new method that will allow census data to be updated annually, and not every ten years, as was done up to now.
This first publication reveals striking data, such as that the Galician population has the third highest average age in Spain, with 47.25 years (45.62 for men and 48.77 for women). Only Asturians (48.35 years on average) and residents of Castilla y León (47.43 years) surpass it. The Spanish average is 43.30 years, and the inhabitants of Ceuta and Melilla are the only ones with an average age below forty (37.48 and 35.6 years, respectively).
The differences between the Galician provinces are pronounced. Thus, while Pontevedra registers an average age of 45.70 years, in Ourense the figure rises to 50.47 years. In Lugo they are 49.76 and in A Coruña, 47.25.
By age groups, one in four community residents are 65 or older (25.74%), compared to 12.39% of children under 16 years of age. In the 2011 census, the population that reached or exceeded the theoretical retirement age was 22.8%, three points less, and there were 14,700 more children and adolescents.
More than fourteen thousand Venezuelans, thirteen thousand Portuguese and nine thousand Brazilians
Of the almost 2.7 million residents that the 2021 census gives to Galicia, 51.8% are women and 48.2% are men. Besides, 114,00 (4.23%) are of foreign nationality, with a special presence of Venezuelans (14,588), Portuguese (13,019), Brazilians (9,204), Colombians (8,821), Moroccans (7,025) and Romanians (6,833). Also noteworthy are citizens arriving from Peru (3,970), Argentina (3,519) or the Dominican Republic (3,299), those from Cuba (3,176), or those from Senegal (2,852), China (2,390), or Russia (2,094). 1,838 Italians, 1,642 Paraguayans, 1,602 French, or 1,036 Native Americans also reside in Galicia.
Other nationalities, however, have a residual presence. In Galicia, for example, there are nine Nepalis, fifteen Ethiopians, 21 Estonians or 23 Andorrans, as well as 27 Israelis. Twenty-eight people from each country have arrived from Kazakhstan, Iraq and Latvia, and another 29 from Norway.
The INE statistics also reveal issues such as that almost one in four residents in the community (23.9%) lives in a municipality with more than one hundred thousand inhabitants, while e15.4% do so in municipalities with less than five thousand residents.
In addition, more than half (54.7%) continue to reside in the same municipality where they were born, while 23.8% have moved to another council in the same province, another 6.6% have moved to another Galician province, 5.6% were born in another community, and 9.2% were born abroad and now live in Galicia.
In another order of things, according to the latest census information, one in four inhabitants of Galicia has higher education (26.05%), a figure that rises to 37.64% among those under 64 years of age.
