Demographics
| Historical population | ||
|---|---|---|
| Year | Pop. | ±% |
| 1750 | 70,000 | — |
| 1931 | 728,500 | +940.7% |
| 1943 | 946,000 | +29.9% |
| 1953 | 1,223,900 | +29.4% |
| 1960 | 1,529,800 | +25.0% |
| 1975 | 1,917,500 | +25.3% |
| 1981 | 1,929,400 | +0.6% |
| 1990 | 2,107,500 | +9.2% |
| 1997 | 2,197,700 | +4.3% |
| 2002 | 2,204,028 | +0.3% |
| 2005 | 2,181,324 | −1.0% |
| 2009 | 2,141,993 | −1.8% |
By the end of 2009, 19.1% of the population of Cuba lived in Havana. According to the census of 2009, the population was 2,141,993 (6,139 less from the previous year), including 1,032,687 men and 1,109,306 women. The city has an average life expectancy of 76.81 years at birth. In 2009, there were 1,924 people living with HIV/AIDS in the city, 78.9% of these are men, and 21.1% being women.
According to the 1981 Havana's official race census (the Cuban census and similar studies use the term "skin colour" instead of "race"),
- White: 63.4%, (Galician, Asturian and Canarian were the most common European ethnicity)
- mulatto (White/black mixed race): 20.4%
- Black: 16.4%, (brought by Spanish colonists from Sub-Saharan Africa)
- Asian: 0.2% (reflecting immigration from China in the late 19th and early 20th centuries)
There are few mestizos contrary to many other Latin American countries, because the Native Indian population was virtually wiped out by Eurasian diseases in colonial times.
Havana agglomeration grew rapidly during the first half of the 20th century reaching 1 million inhabitants in the 1943 census. The con-urbanization expanded over the Havana municipality borders into neighbor municipalities of Marianao, Regla and Guanabacoa. Starting from the 1980s, the city's population is growing slowly as a result of balanced development policies, low birth rate, its relatively high rate of emigration abroad, and controlled domestic migration. Because of the city and country's low birth rate and high life expectancy, its age structure is similar to a developed country, with Havana having an even higher proportion of elderly than the country as a whole.
The Cuban government controls the movement of people into Havana on the grounds that the Havana metropolitan area (home to nearly 20% of the country's population) is overstretched in terms of land use, water, electricity, transportation, and other elements of the urban infrastructure. There is a population of internal migrants to Havana nicknamed "palestinos" (Palestinians), sometimes considered a racist term, these mostly hail from the eastern region of Oriente.
The city's significant minority of Chinese, mostly Cantonese ancestors, were brought in the mid-19th century by Spanish settlers via the Philippines with work contracts and after completing 8-year contracts many Chinese immigrants settled permanently in Havana. Before the revolution the Chinese population counted to over 200,000, today, Chinese ancestors could count up to 100,000. Chinese born/ native Chinese (mostly Cantonese as well) are around 400 presently. There are some 3,000 Russians living in the city, as reported by the Russian Embassy in Havana, they're mostly women that married Cubans who had gone to the Soviet Union to study. Havana also shelters other non-Cuban population of an unknown size. There is a population of several thousand North African teen and pre-teen refugees.
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