Where Europe's population is shrinking

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von Lilith Grull<br>, Ada Homolova<br>, Frida Thurm

21. April 2026

Europe’s overall population has grown over recent decades – yet half of all cities and municipalities have lost residents. This is the finding of an analysis by CORRECTIV.Europe based on new data from the European Union’s Joint Research Centre (JRC).

Our map shows where populations have grown (in green) and declined (in red) between 1961 and 2024.

It covers around 100,000 cities and municipalities throughout the EU, Britain, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland.

Because municipal boundaries frequently change, historical data have often been imprecise. Using a new method, however, the JRC has for the first time calculated population trends over a 63-year period based on modern municipal boundaries.

The data reveal two major trends. The first is rural depopulation, as seen here in Spain. Across the 32 countries analysed, one in five rural municipalities lost more than half its population between 1961 and 2024.

Eight of the ten fastest-growing municipalities in Europe during this period are suburbs of Madrid.

By contrast, Villarroya, a village in Spain’s La Rioja region, has lost around 98 per cent of its population.

Populations of many municipalities in Spain’s interior have declined dramatically – a phenomenon known as “empty Spain”.

Greece shows a similar pattern, with large numbers of people leaving rural areas. Since 1961, 84 per cent of Greek municipalities have experienced population decline.

Population growth has been concentrated almost entirely in Athens and Thessaloniki.

A comparable trend emerges for Germany.

The small town of Waldkappel in Hesse, for example, has lost nearly half of its population, while suburbs of the nearby city of Kassel have grown by as much as 180 per cent.

The second major trend highlighted by the data is emigration from former Eastern Bloc countries such as Poland, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria as well as East Germany since the 1990s.

One striking example is the district town of Hoyerswerda in Saxony, where the population has approximately halved between 1991 and 2024.

Populations in nearly all municipalities in eastern Germany – 88 per cent – have declined since 1991. In western Germany, by contrast, only 26 per cent of municipalities have recorded a decline.

A similar pattern can be observed across large parts of Eastern Europe – notably Bulgaria, where the population has been in decline for three decades.

The Vidin region has lost 61 per cent of its population. Bulgaria joined the EU in 2007; in the years that followed, even more people left than during the 1990s.

Lithuania is an extreme example of both trends: 73 per cent of all municipalities have shrunk …

… yet the population of the capital Vilnius has nearly tripled since 1961.

While the overall population is shrinking in many Central and Eastern European countries, in others it is growing. According to Eurostat projections, Luxembourg, Ireland, Sweden and the Netherlands are expected to continue gaining population in future.

Quality of life in rural areas at risk

Europe is at a turning point: the total population of the EU has been growing for decades, reaching around 450 million in 2025. According to EU projections, this growth is expected to peak around 2029 – after which the population is projected to gradually decline. The forecast trends vary greatly from one place to another. Nevertheless, the population of the entire European continent is expected to shrink as migration will no longer be able to compensate for the long-declining birth rates.

A recent forecast by the German Economic Institute (IW) reaches a similar conclusion. Germany’s population is likely to start shrinking earlier than previously anticipated, largely due to lower-than-expected immigration.

Leo van Wissen, demographic researcher at the Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute, highlights the different pace of demographic change across European countries and regions. He expects that “especially regional differences within countries will intensify, with strong growth in urban areas while rural areas continue to dwindle.”

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As a result, it is becoming increasingly difficult and costly to maintain services in sparsely populated rural areas. Railway stations, schools, bank branches and bakeries are closing due to a lack of customers and staff shortages. This, in turn, threatens to reduce quality of life for people living in the countryside.

“The ageing of European societies is the greatest challenge,” demographer Claudia Neu tells CORRECTIV.Europe. “We are facing enormous healthcare and long-term care costs, which will likely have to be borne by the younger generation.”

Without immigration, EU population would already be shrinking

The JRC categorises the prospects of the...