At a rate of a little more than 34 per daythe population of Castilla y León managed to grow in the third quarter of the year by 3,168 people until bringing the provisional number of residents on October 1, 2024 to 2,393,741. An increase of 0.13 percent which implies “slight” growth, but which beyond the percentage means that “we are changing the trend”, assessed yesterday the President of the Council, Alfonso Fernández Mañueco, based on data from the INE (National Institute of Statistics). recently published, in which all the autonomy gained inhabitants, the Community being the third in which they increased the least in percentage, tied with Aragon and the Canary Islands.
Although shythe increase breaks with the decline observed in the first half of the year with which it had started precisely this year, breaking the streak of the previous seven quarters of consecutive increases. The statistic returns to the positive and brings the population closer to this psychological “barrier” of 2.4 million inhabitants.
This third-quarter boost represents “hope,” Mañueco said, who also estimated that looking back a little further, a year and a half ago, the population of the Community had increased by almost 10,000 people. Over the last twelve months, more than 4,600 people have been registered there and the increase recorded between July and September has more than compensated for what was subtracted during the first six months of the year, so that at At the start of October, there were 2,513 more people in the statistics than at the start of 2024.
The foreign population is the key to this increase, a group that continues its continuous climbs. And this in values that serve not only to compensate for the progressive decline of people born in Spain, but also to stimulate demography. In the third quarter, this contingent gained more than 5,900 people, while the number of nationals settled in Castile and León decreased by 2,748. Compared to a year ago, there are 20,565 more births outside national borders and 15,906 fewer births within the national territory. This development is gradually increasing the weight of foreigners in the population as a whole. If a year and a half ago they represented one in ten, in the latest statistics they are around 11.3 percent. In addition, if we look at nationality – there are people who, although born in another country, may have Spanish – we have seen an increase, from 7.2 percent in April 2023 – point at which Mañueco wanted to highlight the increase – to more than eight now, below the 13.76 percent it represents in Spain as a whole.
By provinces, in the last quarter, The population increased in Ávila, Burgos, Palencia, Salamanca, Segovia, Soria and Valladolid. -all in values lower than 0.3 percent-, while in Zamora it remained constant and León was the only one where it fell, with around 200 less. Compared to a year ago they are increasing, in addition to Zamora, while Avila practically does not change, and León is also the one that is decreasing, as well as the slight decrease in Soria.
The continuing demographic study also published yesterday by the Junta de Castilla y León shows that in the third quarter of the year the number of households increased. Only 0.09 percent, reaching 1,051,998, with an average size of 2.25 people per “cap”, below the 2.5 of the Spanish average. And there are no big variations in this sense between the provinces, since they vary from 2.14 for the smallest, those of Zamora, to 2.33 for the largest, those of Valladolid. And more than one in three people (35%) live in a single family. while those housing four or more people do not reach 18 percent.
