Demographics of Portugal

Demographics of Portugal
Population pyramid of Portugal as of 2023
Population	10,639,726 (2023)
Growth rate	1.2% (2023)
Birth rate	8.1 births/1,000 population (2023)
Death rate	11.1 deaths/1,000 population (2023)
Life expectancy	81.2 years (2023)
• male	78.4 years (2023)
• female	83.7 years (2023)
Fertility rate	1.44 children (2023)
Infant mortality rate	2.5 deaths/1,000 live births (2023)
Net migration rate	14.7 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2023)
Age structure
0–14 years	12.8% (2023)
15–64 years	63.1% (2023)
65 and over	24.1% (2023)
Sex ratio
Total	0.9 male(s)/female (2022)
At birth	1.05 male(s)/female (2022)
Nationality
Nationality	Portuguese citizen
Major ethnic	Portuguese
Minor ethnic	Afro-Portuguese Others
Language
Official	Portuguese
Spoken	Languages of Portugal

Demographic features of the population of Portugal include population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.

As of 2023, Portugal had an estimated population of 10,639,726 inhabitants.^[1] Its population density, at 115.4 inhabitants per square kilometre (299/sq mi), is slightly higher than that of most EU countries, moderately surpassing the EU average of 105.4 inhabitants per square kilometre (273/sq mi).^[2][3] However, the distribution of the population is widely uneven; the most densely populated areas are the Lisbon metropolitan area (which contains well above a quarter of the country's population), the metropolitan areas of Porto and the Atlantic coast, while other vast areas are very sparsely populated, like the plateaus of Alentejo, the Trás-os-Montes and Serra da Estrela highlands, and the lesser islands of the Azores archipelago.

The population of the country almost doubled during the twentieth century (+91%), but the pattern of growth was extremely uneven due to large-scale internal migration from the rural North to the industrial cities of Lisbon and Porto, a phenomenon which happened as a consequence of the robust economic growth and structural modernisation, owing to a liberalisation of the economy of the 1960s.

High fertility and birth rates persisted until the 1980s, after which they started to dramatically decline, leading to rapid population aging. At the end of the first decade of the 21st century, almost one in five Portuguese was over 65 years old.^[4] Lately, Portugal has been experiencing a short growth in birth rates. The total fertility rate has climbed from an all-time low of 1.21 children per woman in 2013 to 1.43 in 2022, still well below replacement level.

Due to decrease in emigration and increase in immigration in the late 1990s and early 2000s the total population reached its peak in December 2009, standing at 10,573,479. Since then, due to the 2008 financial crisis, immigration (that was- in some years - surpassed by emigration) could not offset a shrinking population size, mainly due to the low birthrate but, also due to aging, the rising mortality. After having decreased by 2.27% by 2018, the total population of Portugal started to grow again, mainly sustained by growing immigration and slightly increasing birth rates.^[5][6] By 2023, the total population had already surpassed the 2009 peak.

Portugal is a fairly linguistically and religiously homogeneous country. Ethnically, the Portuguese people form a big majority of the total population in Portugal. The Portuguese people are mainly a combination of ancient paleolithic populations, and the proto-Celtic, Celtic and Iberian tribes, para-Celtic Lusitanians. Some other groups, like the Romans, Germanic (Visigoths, Suevi, Buri, Alans and Vandals) and later the Moorish (Arabs and Berber), Sephardic Jewish, and the French also passed through the country.

Today, Brazilians, Britons, Indians, Italians, French, Ukrainians, Nepalis and countries members of PALOP (Portuguese-speaking African countries) are the main immigrants and form the major foreign communities in the country.^[7][8]

Portuguese is spoken throughout the country, with only some villages near the northern municipality of Miranda do Douro speaking Mirandese, locally recognised as a co-official language.