Half of Europe's towns and villages have fewer residents than 60 years ago

Between 1961 and 2024, half of Europe's approximately 100,000 towns and municipalities lost residents despite overall population growth across the continent, according to an analysis of new EU data. The decline is driven by two main trends: rural depopulation concentrated in southern and eastern regions (with villages in Spain, Greece, and Bulgaria losing up to 98 percent of their populations), and emigration from former Eastern Bloc countries and East Germany since the 1990s, while growth has concentrated in major cities and their suburbs.