section_path: Demographics
section_name: Demographics
paragraph_text: Demographics
  
  The population of the EU in 2021 was about 447 million people, corresponding to 5.8 per cent of the world population. The population density across the EU was 106 inhabitants per square kilometre, which is more than the world average. It is highest in areas in central and western Europe, sometimes referred to as the " blue banana ", while Sweden and Finland in the north are much more sparsely populated.
  
  The total population of the EU has been slightly decreasing for several years, contracting by 0.04 per cent in 2021. This is due to a low birth rate of about 1.5 children per woman, less than the world average of 2.3. In total, 4.1 million babies were born in the EU in 2021. Immigration to Europe partially compensates for the natural population decrease.
  
  5.3 per cent of the people residing in the EU are not EU citizens. There were 31 non-EU citizenships that each accounted for at least 1 per cent of non-EU citizens living in the EU, of which the largest were Moroccan, Turkish, Syrian and Chinese. Around 1.9 million people immigrated to one of the EU member states from a non-EU country during 2020, and a total of 956,000 people emigrated from a member state to go to a non-EU country during the same year.