Refugee movements, especially those coming from Ukraine, have been considered the main drive for the population in Germany to increase by 1.3 per cent, which accounts for 1.12 million more people in the country, with the data being recorded in 2022.
According to Destatis, the Federal Statistics Office, around 1.45 million people additional people are living in Germany as of 2022, with the majority coming from Ukraine, causing the population in Germany to reach a total of 84.4 million, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.
In 2021, the population of Germany grew by 82,000, represented by a 0.1 per cent increase, while in the same year, net immigration stood at 329,000.
The growth was also impacted by the excess of deaths over births, which increased to 327,000 while these rates stood at 228,000.
The same data reveals that the change in the population of Germany stands at 1.12 million more people living in the country compared to 2021, with Western Germany being particularly impacted by the growth – around 912,900 more people were living in this region by the end of 2021, while Eastern Germany experienced a growth of 131,000.
The Nordrhein-Westfalen had the highest surplus in population – a total of 214,500 new residents, followed by Bayern with 192,400 habitants and Baden-Wurttemberg with 155,600.
On the other hand, regions with the lowest increases were Bremen – 8,400 more inhabitants, Saarland (10,300), Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (17,200) and Sachsen-Anhalt with 17,400 new residents.
Destatis also reveals that net migration from Ukraine 2022 reached 962,000 in 2022, which is higher than that from Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq together recorded between 2014 and 2016, which totalled 834,000.
“Since Russia attacked Ukraine on February 24, 2022, millions of people have left the country. Roughly 1.1 million arrivals of people from Ukraine were recorded in Germany in 2022,” Destatis explains.
The majority of newcomers are women -around 292,543 of those coming in March alone, while 138,138 men reached Germany in the same month.
As of December 2022, 17,404 women from Ukraine arrived in Germany, in addition to 14,194 men, and the majority of those settled in Berlin.
While in January 2022, Ukrainians represented 0.37 per cent of the total population in Berlin, these rates reached 1.47 per cent of the people living in the capital city, representing an evident increase in Ukrainian nationals present in Germany, in general.