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Population

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Approximately 82.6 million people live in Germany, with around 7.3 million with roots from outside the country.

The population in Germany is very unevenly distributed. About one-third of inhabitants – around 25 million people – live in 82 large towns. Some 50.5 million people live in communities and towns with between 2,000 and 100,000 inhabitants each. Around 6.4 million call villages with up to 2,000 inhabitants home.

Having experienced rapid growth since the German unification, the area in and around Berlin currently is home to more than 4.3 million people. The industrialized region on the Rhine and the Ruhr rivers, where the towns merge into one another without clear boundaries, hosts more than 11 million people. These densely populated regions contrast with very thinly populated areas such as large sections of the March of Brandenburg and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.

With a average population density of 230 people per square kilometer, Germany is overall one of the most densely populated countries in Europe. In the new federal states and old East Berlin the population density stands at 140 persons per square kilometer and in the old west at 267.

With nine births per 1,000 inhabitants per year, Germany has one of the world's lowest birthrates. Most women are not having their first child until they are in their early thirties, and on average each woman only has 1.3 children. However, over the past years Germany's population has remained at a stable level. The deficit in births was compensated for by the immigration of some three million migrants. However, this low birthrate is coupled with an increasing life expectancy – currently 74.4 for a new-born boy and 80.6 for a new-born girl – which affects the age distribution of the population.

The family is still the preferred mode of coexistence. The majority of the population lives as families, and almost half of them in a traditional family consisting of a married couple with children. Every fourth inhabitant of a large town lives alone; in the countryside and in small towns the figure stands at every seventh person. Around 2.4 million people, mainly women, live alone with their children.

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