In 2024 Germany’s population rose by 0.1% which is a drop from the 0.4% growth witnessed the year before, according to preliminary figures released by the Federal Statistical Office on Friday.
As a result, the population for the EU’s largest economy now stands at 83.6 million.
The figures showed that, as in previous years, more people died than were born in Germany, but the population growth came about due to immigration.
Population growth concentrated in Germany’s western states, which saw an increase of 0.2%, while the eastern states, excluding the city-state of Berlin, recorded a decline of 0.3%.
The largest increase for a state came in Bavaria, with population numbers up by 73,000.
The biggest population losses occurred in the eastern states of Thuringia (down 15,000 or 0.7%), Saxony (down 12,000 or 0.3%), and Saxony-Anhalt (down 9,000 or 0.4%).
The number of people aged 60 to 79 rose by 2.2%, primarily due to the aging of the baby boomer generation. The 80-and-over population also grew slightly, by 0.2%.
As of the end of 2024, 30.5% of Germany’s population was aged 60 or older.
The number of foreign nationals living in Germany rose by 2.3% to 12.4 million in 2024, with the largest diaspora being Turkish nationals (1.403 million). The next largest diaspora in Germany, according to the preliminary figures, is the Ukrainian diaspora (1.085 million), followed by nationals from Syria (889,000), Romania (771,000) and Poland (723,000).
