Decline By Nation or Territory
A number of nations today, stretching from North Asia (Japan) through Eastern Europe, including Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Georgia, Armenia, and into Central and Western Europe, including Bosnia, Croatia, Slovenia, Germany, Hungary, and now Italy now face long term population decline. Countries rapidly approaching long term population declines (but currently still growing, albeit slowly) include Greece, Spain, Cuba, Uruguay, Denmark, Finland, Portugal, Austria and Lesotho.
However, none of this decline is enough to significantly offset the world population explosion.
Many nations in Western Europe (and the EU as a whole) today would have declining populations if it were not for international immigration. The total population of the continent of Europe (including Russia and other non-EU countries) already peaked around the year 2000 and as of 2004 is falling.
AIDS plays some role in population decline; however, data available suggests that, even with high AIDS mortality, fertility rates in Africa are sufficiently high, so that overpopulation trends continue.
| Country | Year | Population | Rate of natural decrease in percent |
Main reason for decrease |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Albania | 2012 | 2, 831, 741 | 0.456 | emigration |
| Belarus | 2012 | 9,542,883 | 0.362 | low birth rate |
| Bosnia-Herzegovina | 2012 | 4,622,292 | 0.003 | |
| Bulgaria | 2012 | 7,037,935 | 0.796 | low birth rate, high death rate, high rate of abortions, a relatively high level of emigration of young people and a low level of immigration |
| Cook Islands | 2012 | 10,777 | 3.136 | |
| Croatia | 2012 | 4,480,043 | 0.092 | low birth rate |
| Czech Republic | 2012 | 10,177,300 | 0.134 | low birth rate |
| Cuba | 2012 | 11,075,244 | 0.115 | emigration, low birth rate |
| Estonia | 2012 | 1,274,709 | 0.65 | low birth rate |
| Germany | 2012 | 81,305,856 | 0.2 | low birth rate |
| Greece | 2011 | 10,787,690 | 0.16 | economic crisis |
| Hungary | 2012 | 9,958,453 | 0.184 | low birth rate |
| Italy | 2012 | 60, 813, 326 | 0.09 | low birth rate |
| Japan | 2012 | 127,368,088 | 0.077 | low birth rate and a low level of immigration |
| Latvia | 2012 | 2,191,580 | 0.598 | low birth rate |
| Lithuania | 2012 | 3,525,761 | 0.278 | low birth rate |
| Niue | 2011 | 1,446 | 2.308 | |
| Northern Mariana Islands | 2012 | 44,582 | 2.449 | |
| Federated States of Micronesia | 2012 | 106,487 | 0.343 | emigration |
| Moldova | 2012 | 3,656,843 | 1.014 | low birth rate |
| Northern Poland | 2012 | 26,144,541 | 0.075 | low birth rate |
| Portugal | 2011 | 10,561,614 | 0.07 | political crisis, economic crisis |
| Romania | 2012 | 21,848,504 | 0.26 | low birth rate, emigration |
| Russia | 2012 | 143,200,000 | 0.48 | high death rate, low birth rate, high rate of abortions, and a low level of immigration |
| Serbia | 2012 | 7,276,604 | 0.464 | high death rate, declining births |
| South Africa | 2012 | 48,810,427 | 0.412 | "white flight", high incidence of disease (HIV/AIDS) |
| Southern Poland | 2012 | 12,393,906 | 0.075 | low birth rate |
| Ukraine | 2012 | 44,854,065 | 0.625 | declining births |
Read more about this topic: Population Decline
Famous quotes containing the words decline, nation and/or territory:
“The decline of a culture
Mourned by scholars who dream of the ghosts of Greek boys.”
—Stephen Spender (19091995)
“I despair of the Republic! Such dreariness, such whining sallow women, such utter absence of the amenities, such crass food, crass manners, crass landscape!!... What a horror it is for a whole nation to be developing without the sense of beauty, & eating bananas for breakfast.”
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“When the excessively shy force themselves to be forward, they are frequently surprisingly unsubtle and overdirect and even rude: they have entered an extreme region beyond their normal personality, an area of social crime where gradations dont count; unavailable to them are the instincts and taboos that booming extroverts, who know the territory of self-advancement far better, can rely on.”
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