11 May 2017
The Central Statistics Office today publishes the second in the series of eleven thematic reports from Census 2016 – Profile 2: Population Distribution and Movements.
This report is accompanied by a set of detailed tables of population by area, published on the CSO website, which provide the population for every settlement in Ireland for 2016 and 2011.
Deirdre Cullen, Senior Statistician, commented: ”Profile 2 provides information on the distribution of the population, changes in urban and rural populations, population density and internal migration. This is the second of our thematic census releases and sheds further light on how the population has changed over the past five years”.
Urbanisation
In April 2016, 44% of the State’s total urban population lived in Dublin, while 11% lived in Cork. Sligo was the county with the biggest change in the rate of urbanisation, increasing from 37% to 40% over the five years. Forty-one towns had a population of 10,000 or more, with 27 in Leinster, nine in Munster, three in Connacht and two in the three Ulster counties. 62.7% of the population lived in urban areas in April 2016.
Rural Areas
37.3% of the population lived in rural areas in April 2016. The largest rural population increase was in County Cork with 6,946 persons followed by Kildare which saw its rural population increase by 4,025 persons.
Largest and fastest growing towns
Drogheda, with a population of 40,956 (up 6.2% since April 2011) remained the largest town in Ireland. Swords (39,248) and Dundalk (39,004) complete the top three. Ennis (25,276 persons) remained the largest town in Munster. Sligo with 19,199 persons was Connacht's largest town, while Letterkenny (19,274 persons) was the largest town in the three Ulster counties. The latter three towns experienced a slight decline in population since April 2011.
Population Density
There were 70 people per km2 in April 2016, up from 67 people per km2 in 2011. The density average in 2016 was 2,008 people per km2 in urban areas and 27 people per km2 in rural areas while in 2011 the respective figures were 1,736 and 26.
Coastal Living
1.9 million people or 40% of the population were residing within 5km of the coast. Of this figure, 40,000 lived less than 100 metres from the nearest coastline.
County of birth and county of residence
65.1% of Meath’s population were born outside the county, the highest proportion in the country. Cork city and county, at 25.5%, had the lowest proportion of residents born outside the county. Just 13% of those born in Donegal were usually resident in another county.
Internal migration declines
263,551 usual residents (aged one year and over) moved in the year up to April 2016, down 3.5% on the 2011 figure of 273,239. Of these, 94,182 moved in Dublin, with 18,716 moving out of the county. The top destinations were Kildare, Meath and Wicklow. The number of households moving in the year up to April 2016 fell by 4% to 110,204.
Age profile of movers
The most mobile cohort of the population was those aged 20 to 34, accounting for 45.7% of all movers. 28 was the peak age for moving in the year up to 2016 compared with 25 in 2011. The numbers dropped considerably for those aged 40 and over who made up only 21.6% of the movers.
Today’s full report is available on the CSO website at Census of Population 2016 - Profile 2 Population Distribution and Movements
Note to Editors:
Brendan Murphy (+353) 1 895 1329 or Census Enquiries (+353) 1 895 1460
or email census@cso.ie
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