Uruguay has a stagnant population of 3.4 million inhabitants, with a greater urban concentration and more immigrants, according to preliminary data from the latest census, presented by the National Institute of Statistics (INE) this Monday (27).
3,444,263 people live in the country, of which 52% are women and 48% are men.
This represents a 1% increase compared to the population recorded in the 2011 census, which INE attributes to the arrival of around 62,000 immigrants.
“Immigrants allowed us to have a small increase in the population in the period between censuses”, explained the director of INE, Diego Aboal.
Without the migratory flow, the number of inhabitants of Uruguay would have decreased due to the cyclical increase in deaths due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the persistent drop in birth rates in recent decades.
Uruguay has a “relatively stagnant” population, highlighted Aboal, as he warned of the challenge that the country faces: “each child will be very precious”.
Aboal also highlighted the aging process of Uruguayans, whose average age is 38 years old, up from 34 years old in 2011 and 29 years old in 2004.
Currently, 2% of the population is over 85 years old and the number of centenarians has increased to 822 (there were 517 in 2011 and 440 in 2004).
Furthermore, the population living in rural areas continues to decline, estimated at 4% compared to 96% of the urban population. In the 1963 census, one in five people lived in the countryside.
In Uruguay, the average family size also decreased to 2.5 people. “This has to do with demographic trends, but also with a country that has developed,” said Aboal.
– For the first time, immigrants increase the population –
For the first time since the 1908 census, growth in the foreign-born population was recorded, which stood at 3%, one percentage point more than in 2011.
INE estimates that 61,810 immigrants arrived in the country between 2012 and 2023, the majority coming from Venezuela (27%), Argentina (22%) and Cuba (20%), followed by people coming from Brazil, Colombia, Spain, Peru, United States, Chile and Dominican Republic, among others.
In Uruguay, with a surface area of 176,000 km², the largest population is on the south coast of the country, on the banks of the River Plate and the Atlantic Ocean, with peaks on the coast, on the banks of the Uruguay River, on the border with Argentina, and with lower density in the north and east regions, on the border with Brazil.
Demographic consultations have been carried out in Uruguayan territory for more than two centuries, but the first census covering the entire country was carried out in 1860, when 223,238 inhabitants were registered.
The 2023 census made history as the first carried out in Uruguay in which the population was able to fill out the form online, a method chosen by six out of ten families.