Germany Population 2024 (Live)

83,266,998

According to current projections, Germany’s population is expected to peak at the end of 2021 with 83.9 million people. By the end of the century, Germany’s population is expected to fall to 74.73 million people. Because of this, Great Britain and France will both surpass Germany’s population.

Germany’s death rate has been higher than its birth rates since the 1970s. Currently, the birth rate is 9.397 births per 1,000 people, which has been declining every year. The death rate is 11.392 deaths per 1,000 people. Additionally, the fertility rate in Germany is 1.59 births per woman.

People in Germany are living longer and having fewer babies. Germany also has a high median age of 47.4 years. Projections show that 37.6% of the population will be over 60 years old by 2050.

Germany Population Projections

The growth Germany has seen in the past has slowed almost to a halt in recent years, with a growth rate of only 0.20%. By 2025, the population is expected to start decreasing slightly.

The population is projected to be 82,540,450 by 2020 but will decrease to less than 80,000,000 by 2050.

Population Rank
Growth Rate
2024 World Percentage
Land Area
349,390
The current population of Germany is 83,266,998 based on projections of the latest United Nations data. The UN estimates the July 1, 2024 population at 83,252,474.

Germany Growth Rate

Germany Population 2024 (Live)

Germany Population Clock

Germany Population (as of 3/11/2024)83,266,998
Next UN Estimate (July 1, 2024)83,252,474
Births per Day2,053
Deaths per Day2,609
Migrations per Day425
Net Change per Day-131
Population Change Since Jan. 1-9,301

Components of Population Change

One birth every 42 seconds
One death every 33 seconds
One immigrant every 3.38 minutes
Net loss of one person every 11 minutes

Germany Population Clock

City
2024 Population
Berlin3,426,354
Hamburg1,739,117
Munich1,260,391
Koeln963,395
Frankfurt am Main650,000
Essen593,085
Stuttgart589,793
Dortmund588,462
Duesseldorf573,057
Bremen546,501

Germany Area and Population Density

When East Germany and West Germany were reunited in 1990, the population of East Germany was around 16.1 million people.

Although living standards have improved dramatically in the East over the past 20 years, it still lags behind in economic development, and as a result, many people head west in search of better job opportunities.

Pollution is also a massive legacy of the East German era, where industrial output was prioritized more highly than the environment, and many seek to move simply for a better quality of life.

The New York Times reports that around 1.7 million people have left East Germany since 1990 -- that's a decrease in population of just over 10%.

Largest Cities in Germany

Germany is divided into 16 states, referred to collectively as Länder, and each state has its own constitution and remains fairly autonomous. Each state also has its own capital. Despite its large population, Germany has relatively few large cities, and only four have a population over 1 million: Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and Cologne.

Still, these cities are much larger when the metropolitan area is taken into account. Hamburg, for example, has a city population of 1.8 million as of 2012, but its metropolitan area is home to more than 5 million. Düsseldorf, the 7th largest city in Germany, has a population of close to 600,000, but its metropolitan area is home to over 11.3 million.

Germany is home to a large number of smaller cities and towns, however, and in total there are currently 82 cities with a population of more than 100,000 people.

Germany Population Density Map

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Year
Population
Growth Rate
Density (/km²)
Population Rank
Density Rank
202483,252,4740.03%2391959
202383,294,6330.1%2391959
202083,328,9880.22%2391957
201983,148,1410.3%2391958
201882,896,6960.33%2381858
201782,624,3740.36%2371854
201582,073,2260.18%2351655
201081,325,0900.03%2331654
200581,212,168-0.08%2331453
200081,551,6770.1%2341253
199581,123,2620.44%2331249
199079,370,1960.44%2281248
198577,638,808-0.04%2231141
198077,786,703-0.19%2231034
197578,513,5110.06%225830
197078,294,5830.59%225828
196576,037,4690.8%218827
196073,063,6950.51%210828
195571,222,6280.07%204724

Germany Population by Year (Historical)

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Year
Population
Growth Rate
Density (/km²)
Population Rank
Density Rank
202483,252,4740.03%2391959
202583,199,069-0.03%2391959
203082,762,675-0.1%2371964
203582,073,885-0.17%2352067
204081,201,103-0.21%2332068
204580,157,776-0.26%2302170
205078,932,228-0.31%2262372
205577,545,526-0.35%2222673
206076,130,208-0.37%2182775
206574,884,119-0.33%2152976
207073,848,370-0.28%2122978
207572,883,375-0.26%2093079
208071,910,856-0.27%2063379
208570,963,140-0.27%2043578
209070,130,955-0.24%2013679
209569,462,190-0.19%1993678

Germany Population by Year (Projections)

Germany Population Pyramid 2024

Germany Median Age

47.8

Total

46.5

Male

49.1

Female

Germany Population by Age

There are people over age 18 in Germany.

Census Years

Year
Date
20211 January 2021
20119 May 2011
199530 September 1995
198725 May 1987

Germany Population Pyramid

Germany Demographics

There are four groups considered "national minorities," which means their ancestors lived in their regions for many centuries. These groups are the Sorbs, Danes, Frisians, and the Roma and Sinti. There are about 50,000 Danes in the northernmost region of Germany. The Sorbs, who are a Slavic people, live in the Lusatia region. There are large populations of Frisians in Lower Saxony and the western coast of Schleswig-Holstein.

About 3.4 million Germans are living abroad.

Germany Religion, Economy and Politics

The majority of Germans are Christian, either Roman Catholic (29.9%) or Protestant (29.8%), although 1.3% of the population are also Orthodox Christians. Islam is the second largest religion in Germany, with an estimated 6.1% of the population according to a 2017 Pew Research Survey. Germany has the second largest Muslim population in Europe, at nearly 5 million, and is expected to grow significantly in the coming decades.

The largest single group, however, is non-believers, who make up 34% of the population. The number of atheists and agnostics is far higher in Eastern Germany than in Western Germany, largely because of the Communist East German state's general policy of discouraging religious belief.

German Population History

Censuses have only been intermittently conducted in Germany, and the last one took place in 1987. Instead, the German Government relies on extrapolations from sample data collected from a small percentage (around 1%) of the population. Still, Germany did participate in the EU-wide census in 2011, which gave much-needed insight into the country's population.

Of all the 27 European Union states, Germany has the highest percentage of immigrants in its population. Over 10 million people living in Germany today were born outside of Germany -- that's about 12% of the German population. Most immigrants come from other European countries, particularly from Turkey, Russia, Poland and Italy. Germany is the second most popular destination for immigrants in the world after the United States.

The German Government has been keen to encourage immigration over the past fifty years -- partly to address longer term demographic problems in Germany, such as its low birth rate, and partly to address shorter term labor shortages.

Germany Population Growth

The country is now spending about $265 million every year on family subsidies in an attempt to reverse a declining population, with little success. Germany has many issues to overcome in order to address this issue, including attitudes in the country toward working women with children who are dubbed "raven mothers" with an implication of neglectfulness or abandonment; additionally, immigrants are not always welcomed with open arms.

Some experts worry that the country has waited too long to try to address its population problem, and raising fertility rates has proven difficult. Giving money to families and tax breaks for stay-at-home mothers and married couples has done little, and demographers believe expanding after-school and daycare programs would be a better investment for the country.

The country will also need to start bringing in more immigrants to fill hundreds of thousands of vacant skilled jobs.

Germany is a representation of the declining fertility rates Europe has seen over the past few decades, and Germany found that it had lost 1.5 million people in its most recent census. This news was a bit of a surprise to the country, which had not conducted a single census since its reunification, even after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. It seems Germany missed this population loss because its people value privacy, and the last census in 1987 was very strongly opposed, and the one in 2011 was only done because it was required by the European Union.

Most of the 1.5 million who disappeared were migrants, who apparently did not deregister when they left the country, and thus lived on in records. Germany was found to have 1.1 million fewer foreigners than it thought, and 428,000 fewer Germans.

Germany Population Rank 2024
Area (km²)
357,114
2024 Growth Rate
Capital
GDP (IMF '23)
$4,429.84
GDP (UN '22)
$4.08 Tn

Germany - General Info

Sources