The population of the European Union was estimated at 511.8 million on January 1, 2017, from with 510.3 million on 1 January 2016. During the year 2016, as many births as deaths were recorded in the EU (5.1 million), meaning that the natural change of the EU population was neutral. The population change (positive, with 1.5 million more inhabitants) was therefore due to net migration, Eurostat said. 

With 82.8 million residents (or 16.2% of the total EU population at 1 January 2017), Germany is the most populated EU Member State, ahead of France (67.0 million, or 13.1%), the United Kingdom (65.8 million, or 12.9%), Italy (60.6 million, or 11.8%), Spain (46.5 million, or 9.1%) and Poland (38.0 million, or 7.4%). For the remaining Member States, nine have a share of between 4% and 1.5% of the EU population and thirteen a share below 1.5%.

During 2016, the population increased in 18 EU Member States and decreased in 10.

Population growth third biggest in Malta

The largest relative increase was observed in Luxembourg (+19.8 per 1 000 residents), ahead of Sweden (+14.5‰), Malta (+13.8‰), Ireland (+10.6‰), Austria (+9.5‰), Germany and Cyprus (both +7.6‰), Denmark (+7.2‰), the United Kingdom (+6.5‰) and the Netherlands (+6.0‰),

In contrast, the largest decrease was recorded in Lithuania (-14.2‰), followed by Latvia (-9.6‰), Croatia (-8.7‰), Bulgaria (-7.3‰) and Romania (-6.2‰).

In total, the population of the EU increased by 1.5 million people (+3.0‰) during 2016.

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