Communities
Demography. INSEE published its traditional census figures on December 28, 2023. And good news, the Occitanie region became on January 1, 2021 the fourth most populous region in France with more than six million inhabitants.
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Published on December 29, 2023
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GdM Editorial
The city of Toulouse, the fourth most populous municipality in France after Paris, Marseille and Lyon, has officially crossed the threshold of 500,000 inhabitants. As of January 1, 2021, 504,078 people resided in the Pink City. (©La Gazette du Midi)
The fourth most populous city in France, behind Paris, Marseille and Lyon, Toulouse has officially passed the milestone of 500 000 habitants according to the latest census study published on December 28, 2023 by the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (Insee), whose analysis covers the period between 2015 and 2021. Montpellier, for its part, exceeds the 300 000 habitants.
As of January 1, 2021, 504,078 people resided in the Pink City. With a population gain of 1.1% per year, Toulouse is the city with the fastest growing population, tied with Nantes (behind Montpellier and Toulon). “It maintains a high natural surplus (+0.8% per year) but the migratory surplus is decreasing compared to the previous period (+0.3% per year compared to +0.5% from 2010 to 2015),” specifies INSEE.
Toulouse and Montpellier: locomotives of demographic growth
Driven by the dynamism and attractiveness of its two large urban areas, Occitanie has become the fourth most populous region in France with 6,022,176 inhabitantss. For the first time in its history, it surpasses Hauts-de-France and is now close behind New Aquitaine.
In detail, INSEE tells us that between 2015 and 2021, “the population of Occitanie increased by 0.7% per year, or around 41,300 additional inhabitants each year, the equivalent of a municipality like Castres “. Behind Guyana (+1.6%) and Corsica (+1.0%), Occitanie is the third region of France outside Mayotte where the population has increased the most over this period, “even if the growth demographic decline slightly compared to the period 2010-2015.
Conversely, the cities of Nîmes (148,104) and Perpignan (119,656), respectively the third and fourth municipalities in Occitanie, have lost inhabitants due to “the clear deterioration of the migratory component”. In Béziers (80,341), Montauban (61,919), Narbonne (56,395), Albi (49,714), Carcassonne (46,218) and Sète (44,712) the population continues to increase or stabilizes.
Haute-Garonne and Hérault concentrate 44% of the population
If we look by department, Haute-Garonne and Hérault are the two territories where the population increases the most over the period 2015-2021, namely by 1.2% on average, or four times faster than the national average. . In 2021, they concentrated 44% of the region’s population (three points more than in 2010), or almost half.
With 16,500 arrivals each year, Haute-Garonne is, unsurprisingly, the most populated department in Occitanie and the 12th in France. As of January 1, 2021, the territory had 1 434 367 habitants. The natural surplus here contributes 0.5% per year to the increase in the population, compared to 0.7% for the migratory surplus. In Hérault (1,201,883), the population increased by 13,600 inhabitants per year between 2015 and 2021. It is the third most attractive department in mainland France after Corsica-du-Sud and Landes.
Also read In Occitania, 16.8% of the population lives below the poverty line
Note that in all the other departments of Occitanie, there are more arrivals than departures. This attractiveness compensates for the deterioration of natural balances, linked to the decline in fertility and the aging of the population: Gard (756,543), Pyrénées-Orientales (487,307), Tarn (393,572), Aude (376,028), Aveyron (279,649), Tarn-et-Garonne (263,377), Hautes-Pyrénées (230,956), Gers 192,437), Lot (174,942), Ariège (154,596), Lozère (76,519).
Toulouse, an “attractive, dynamic and attractive” city according to Jean-Luc Moudenc
The publication of these results did not fail to provoke a reaction mayor of Toulouse who welcomed “this demographic vitality” before returning to the challenges and issues that this attractiveness also raises: “These figures also demonstrate the essential need to maintain in a very proactive manner the effort to build quality housing in order to to allow newcomers to stay and live in our city in the best conditions. This also encourages us to emphasize concrete projects intended to improve the daily lives of Toulouse residents, district by district, through greater security, nature in the city, solutions for getting around, services close to home, all within the framework of the essential ecological change of our city in the face of climate issues,” declared Jean-Luc Moudenc.
2023-12-29 07:20:37
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