Maltese People - Population Links

Population Links

The first settlers of Malta were from the island of Sicily. However, the result of the influences on the population after this have been fiercely debated among historians and geneticists. The origins question is complicated by numerous factors, including Malta's turbulent history of invasions and conquests, with long periods of depopulation followed by periods of immigration to Malta and intermarriage with the Maltese by foreigners from the Mediterranean, Western and Southern European countries that ruled Malta.

The many demographic influences on the island include:

• The Phoenician colonisation around 1000 BC.
• The exile to Malta of the entire male population of the town of Celano (Italy) in 1223
• The stationing of Norman French and Sicilian Italian troops on Malta in 1240
• The removal of all remaining Arabs from Malta in 1224
• The arrival of several hundred Catalan (Spain) soldiers in 1283
• Further waves of European repopulation throughout the 13th century
• The settlement in Malta of noble families from Sicily (Italy) and Aragon (Spain) between 1372 and 1450
• The arrival of several thousand Greek Rhodian sailors, soldiers and slaves with the Knights of St. John
• The introduction of several thousand Sicilian laborers in 1551 and again in 1566
• The emigration of some 891 Italian exiles to Malta during the Risorgimento in 1849
• The posting of some 22,000 British servicemen in Malta from 1807 to 1979, as well as other British and Irish that settled in Malta over the decades
• The mass emigration occurring after World War II and well into the 1960s and 70s. Many Maltese left the island for the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and the USA. Following Malta's accession to the EU in 2004 expatriate communities grew in European countries such as the one in Belgium.