The population of Spain grows for the first time in five years

The total number of residents registered in Spain on 1 January 2018 was 46,698,569, according to the analysis of official rolling town-hall-census data published on Tuesday by the government's National Institute of Statistics. Of this total, 41,979,151 people are Spanish nationals (89.9% of the total) and 4,719,418 are international (10.1% of the total).

In the last calendar year, 126,437 more people were registered by town halls as residents in Spain (an increase of 0.3%). This is the first population growth for five years. The expansion is down to immigration, given that during 2017, the number of registered Spanish nationals decreased by 20,174 people (0.05%) and that of internationals has increased by 146,611 (3.2%).

Among the latter group, those belonging to the European Union have increased by 2,709% people (0.2%) and those from elsewhere by 143,902 people (5.1%).

Over 2017, populations have diminished in nine autonomous communities. The rest have seen an increase. Madrid, Catalonia and the Canaries have experienced the largest population expansions, while Castilla y León, Extremadura and Galicia have suffered the largest losses.