Catalonia now has 8.1m inhabitants, recording 1.3% growth in 2024

Catalonia now has 8.1 million inhabitants, as of preliminary data from January 1, 2025, published by the Catalan statistics institute (Idescat) on Wednesday. The figure represents a growth of 46,036 people during the last six months of 2024, and an overall growth of 1.3% compared ot the previous year.

The territory saw 101,259 more inhabitants last year than in 2023, data from Idescat shows.

Lleida, a western area, and Tarragona, a southern one, registered a 1.5% growth, while Barcelona's province and Girona, in the north, saw 1.2% more inhabitants than the previous year. This represents an increase of 26,947 people in Barcelona, 3,658 in Girona, 4,062 in Lleida, and 11,369 in Tarragona. 

Catalonia's population aged 16 or less represents 14.4% of the overall population after a reduction of 11,387 people aged between 0 and 15. Meanwhile, those aged 16 to 64 saw an increase of 37,640 people. Those aged 65 or older registered 19,963 more people.

Compared to 2023, those aged between 0 and 15 saw a 2% decrease, the sharpest drop in the last six years.

On Friday, November 3, 2023, Catalonia officially reached 8 million inhabitants.

It had been 36 years since the population reached 6 million in 1987, leading to a well-known publicity campaign from the Catalan government: 'Som 6 milions'. 

The growth of the population by 2 million in the intervening years has been driven mainly by the boom in international migration since the turn of the millennium.

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