As of the 2012 Rwandan census, the population of Kigali was 1,132,686, of which 859,332 were urban residents. The population density was . At the time of independence in 1962, Kigali had 6,000 inhabitants, consisting primarily of those associated with the Belgian colonial residency. It grew considerably after being named as the independent nation's capital, although it remained a relatively small city until the 1970s due to government policies restricting rural-to-urban migration. The population reached 115,000 by 1978, and 235,000 by 1991. The city lost a large fraction of its people during the 1994 genocide, including those killed and those who fled to neighbouring countries. From 1995 the economy began to recover and large numbers of long-term Tutsi refugees returned from Uganda. Many of these refugees settled in Kigali and other urban areas, due to difficulty in obtaining land in other parts of the country. This phenomenon, coupled with a high birth rate and increased rural-to-urban migration, meant that Kigali reattained its previous size quite quickly and began to grow even more rapidly than before. The population exceeded 600,000 in 2002, and in the 2012 census had almost doubled to 1.13 million, although this was in part because the administrative boundaries of the city had been expanded.