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People sit by the Outer Alster in Hamburg: declines can also be observed when moving within Germany
Photo: Bodo Marks / dpa
In the corona crisis, more people in Germany left the big cities than moved here.
This is based on data from the Federal Statistical Office.
At the end of last year, almost 24.5 million people in Germany were living in large cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants.
That was around 29.4 percent of the total population, as reported by the Federal Statistical Office.
The growth of the urban population of 0.7 percent per year that has been established since 2011 did not continue.
The number of people in large cities shrank minimally by 0.1 percent.
Declines were observed when moving within Germany, the so-called internal migration.
Fewer people moved abroad and fewer people moved from abroad to Germany.
Above all, 18 to 22 year olds, who usually start training or study at that age, moved less to large cities.
In view of the corona measures and closed university lecture halls, they apparently stayed with their parents rather than moving into a shared apartment or dormitory.
In
Corona-2020
there were
in the internal migration
around
855,000 inflows
in major cities and
965,000 departures from big cities
.
In the
previous year
there were still
933,000 arrivals
compared to
993,000 departures
.
In 2020
, the number of
immigrants from abroad
to major cities was around
452,000
and the number of
departures
from major cities
abroad was 361,000
.
In the
previous year
, the independent cities reported
620,000 immigrants
from abroad and
472,000 emigrations
abroad.
Last July, researchers at the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research (UFZ) also came to the conclusion that the growth of large cities would be slowed down.
The researchers wrote that lower immigration, fewer births and more deaths in the first Corona year 2020 are responsible for this.
For 2021, too, the scientists see rather negative omens.
ptz / dpa
