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Photo: Rüdiger Wölk / IMAGO
The population in Germany reached an all-time high last year.
According to an estimate by the Federal Statistical Office, at the end of 2022 there were at least 84.3 million people living in the Federal Republic.
The reason for this is immigration at a record level.
"This means that more people lived in this country than ever before at the end of a year," said the Federal Statistical Office.
An estimated 1.42 to 1.45 million more people came to Germany than left abroad.
This means that net immigration in 2022 was more than four times higher than in the previous year (2021: 329,163) and higher than at any time since 1950.
"In addition to the strong immigration of war refugees from Ukraine, the immigration of people of other nationalities has also increased significantly," explained the Federal Statistical Office.
Decrease in births, increase in deaths
At the same time, the number of births has fallen and the number of deaths has risen.
The experts explained that this had a dampening effect on population growth.
Overall, the population increased by 1.1 million between the end of 2021 and the end of 2022.
In the three decades since German unification, Germany's population had largely increased.
The only exceptions were the years 1998 and 2003 to 2010. The population growth was solely due to the fact that more people immigrated than emigrated.
Without net immigration, the population would have been shrinking since 1972, because every year since then more people have died than have been born.
A decline in the number of births and an increase in the number of deaths have had a dampening effect on population growth in 2022.
Based on the reports already available from the registry offices, the number of births in 2022 fell by around seven percent compared to 2021 and is likely to be between 735,000 and 745,000 (2021: 795,492).
The number of deaths, on the other hand, rose by around four percent to around 1.06 million (2021: 1,023,687).
lmd/dpa