Demographics of Europe

Figures for the population of Europe vary according to the particular definition of Europe's boundaries. In 2018, Europe had a total population of over 751 million people. 448 million of them lived in the European Union and 110 million in European Russia; Russia is the most populous country in Europe.
Europe's population growth is low, and its median age high. Most of Europe is in a mode of sub-replacement fertility, which means that each new generation is less populous than the one before. Nonetheless, most West European countries still have growing populations, mainly due to immigration within Europe and from outside Europe and some due to increases in life expectancy and population momentum. Some current and past factors in European demography have included emigration, ethnic relations, economic immigration, a declining birth rate and an ageing population.

History

Prehistory

Approximately 5,000–130,000 people lived in Europe during the Last Glacial Maximum about 20,000 years ago.
According to Volker Heyd, an archaeologist at the University of Helsinki, up to 7 million people lived in Neolithic Europe in 3000 BC.
According to archaeologist Johannes Müller, the European population was about 1 million around 6500 BC, but increased to 8 million in 2000 BC.
The following table shows estimates of historical population sizes of Europe based on Maddison, in millions, with an estimated percentage of world population:

Year	Population	Percentage of world total
AD 1	34	15%
1000	40	15%
1500	78	18%
1600	112	20%
1700	127	21%
1820	224	21%
1913	498	28%
2000	742	13%

Past populations of Europe in modern national borders, AD 1–2020

Country/region	1	1000	1500	1600	1700	1820	1870	1913	1950	1973	1998	2018
Austria	0.2	0.3	0.5	0.4	0.4	0.3	0.4	0.4	0.3	0.2	0.1
Belgium	0.1	0.1	0.3	0.3	0.3	0.3	0.4	0.4	0.3	0.2	0.2
Denmark	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.2	0.2	0.1	0.1
Finland	0.0	0.0	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.2	0.2	0.1	0.1
France	2.2	2.4	3.4	3.3	3.6	3.0	3.0	2.3	1.7	1.3	1.0
Germany	1.3	1.3	2.7	2.9	2.5	2.4	3.1	3.6	2.7	2.0	1.4
Italy	3.0	1.9	2.4	2.4	2.2	1.9	2.2	2.1	1.9	1.4	1.0
Netherlands	0.1	0.1	0.2	0.3	0.3	0.2	0.3	0.3	0.4	0.3	0.3
Norway	0.0	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.1
Sweden	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.2	0.2	0.3	0.3	0.3	0.2	0.1
Switzerland	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.2	0.2	0.2	0.2	0.2	0.2	0.2	0.1
United Kingdom	0.3	0.7	0.9	1.1	1.4	2.0	2.5	2.5	2.0	1.4	1.0
Portugal	0.2	0.2	0.2	0.2	0.3	0.3	0.3	0.3	0.3	0.2	0.2
Spain	1.9	1.5	1.6	1.5	1.5	1.2	1.3	1.1	1.1	0.9	0.7
Other	0.9	0.4	0.3	0.3	0.3	0.3	0.4	0.4	0.5	0.4	0.3
Total Western Europe	10.7	9.5	13.1	13.3	13.5	12.8	14.8	14.6	12.1	9.2	6.6
Eastern Europe	2.1	2.4	3.1	3.0	3.1	3.5	4.1	4.4	3.5	2.8	2.0
Former USSR	1.7	2.6	3.9	3.7	4.4	5.3	7.0	8.7	7.1	6.4	4.9
Total Europe	14.5	14.5	20.1	20.0	21.0	21.6	25.9	27.7	22.7	18.4	13.5	9.8
World	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0

Total population

330,000,000 people lived in Europe in 1916. In 1950 there were 549,000,000. The population of Europe in 2015 was estimated to be 741 million according to the United Nations, which was slightly less than 11% of the world population. The precise figure depends on the exact definition of the geographic extent of Europe. The population of the European Union was 509 million as of 2015. Non-EU countries situated in Europe in their entirety account for another 90 million. Five transcontinental countries have a total of 247 million people, of which about half reside in Europe proper.
As it stands now, around 10% of the world's people live in Europe. If demographic trends keep their pace, its share may fall to around 7% in 2050, but still amounting to 716 million people in absolute numbers, according to the United Nations estimate. The sub-replacement fertility and high life expectancy in most European states mean a declining and aging population. High immigration and emigration levels within and from outside the continent are taking place and quickly changing countries, specifically in Western Europe, from a single ethnic group to a multicultural society. These trends can change societies' economies as well as their political and social institutions.

Vital statistics

Population by country

According to different definitions, such as consideration of the concept of Central Europe, the following territories and regions may be subject to various other categorisations aside from geographic conventions.

Country

Population

Area

Density

us*eft|Albania|pref=Demographics ofdensity|disp=table||28,748UN population|Andorra

Age

Mirroring their mostly sub-replacement fertility and high life expectancy, European countries tend to have older populations overall. They had nine of the top ten highest median ages in national populations in 2005. Only Japan had an older population.

Fertility

According to Eurostat, the average birth rate in the European Union was 1.5 children per woman in 2020. The EU countries with the highest rates were France, Romania and Czechia. The lowest rates were found in Malta, Spain and Italy.
The reasons that Italian citizens give for not having children are economic costs, fear of losing their jobs, and lack of services for families.
Eurostat says that the proportion of children born to foreign mothers, including both from other EU member states and from non-EU countries, has been increasing in the EU since 2013 and stood at 21% in 2020.

Religion

Over the last several centuries, religious practice has been on the decline in a process of secularization. Several European countries have experienced a decline in church attendance as well as a decline in the number of people professing a religious belief. The 2010 Eurobarometer survey found that, on average, 51% of the citizens of the European Union that they believe there is a God, 26% believe there is some sort of spirit or life force and 20% don't believe there is any sort of spirit, God or life force. 3% declined to answer. The Eurobarometer survey must be taken with caution, however, as there are discrepancies between it and national census results. For example, in the United Kingdom, the 2001 census revealed that over 70% of the population regarded themselves as "Christians" with only 15% professing to have no religion, though the wording of the question has been criticized as "misleading" by the British Humanist Association. The 2011 census showed a dramatic reduction to less than 60% of the population regarding themselves as "Christians".
Despite its decline, Christianity is still the largest religion in Europe. According to a survey published in 2010, 76.2% of Europeans identified themselves as Christians. Catholics were the largest Christian group in Europe, accounting for more than 48% of European Christians. The second-largest Christian group in Europe was the Orthodox, who made up 32% of European Christians. And about 19% of European Christians were part of the Protestant tradition. Europe constitutes in absolute terms the world's largest Christian population. According to Scholars, in 2017, Europe's population was 77.8% Christian, these changes were largely result of the collapse of Communism and switching to Christianity in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc countries.
According to a 2003 study, 47% of French people declared themselves as agnostics in 2003. This situation is often called "Post-Christian Europe". A decrease in religiousness and church attendance in western Europe has been noted. According to a survey published in 2012, atheists and agnostics make up about 18.2% of the European population. According to the same survey the religiously unaffiliated make up the majority of the population only in two European countries: Czech Republic and Estonia.
According to another survey about Religiosity in the European Union from 2012 by Eurobarometer, Christianity was the largest religion in the Union, Catholics were with 48% the largest Christian group in the Union, Protestants made up 12%, Eastern Orthodox made up 8% and other Christians accounted for 4% of the total population. non-believers/agnostics accounted for 16%, atheists accounted for 7% and Muslims accounted for 2%.