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:
“I rather think the cinema will die. Look at the energy being exerted to revive it—yesterday it was color, today three dimensions. I don’t give it forty years more. Witness the decline of conversation. Only the Irish have remained incomparable conversationalists, maybe because technical progress has passed them by.”
—Orson Welles (1915–1984)
“The curse of me & my nation is that we always think things can be bettered by immediate action of some sort, any sort rather than no sort.”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)
“Size is not grandeur, and territory does not make a nation.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)