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Poland - Demographics

Poland, with 38.5 million inhabitants, has the eighth-largest population in Europe and the sixth-largest in the European Union. It has a population density of 122 inhabitants per square kilometer (328 per square mile).

      
         Population: 38,635,144 (July 2005 est.)

         Population growth rate: -0.05% (2007 est.)

         Birth rate: 12.78 births/1,000 population (2007 est.)

         Death rate: 10.01 deaths/1,000 population (2005 est.)

Total immigration: +70,300 migrants (2006)

Total emigration: -322,200 migrants (2006)

Total net migration: -251,100 migrants (2006)

Net migration rate: -6.90 migrants/1,000 population (2004 est.)

Total asylum seekers admitted: 94,500 (2006)

Age structure:
0-14 years: 21.7%
15-64 years: 65.3%
65 years and over: 13.0% (2005 est.)

Sex ratio:
at birth: 1.06 male(s)/female
under 15 years: 1.05 male(s)/female
15-64 years: 0.99 male(s)/female
65 years and over: 0.62 male(s)/female
total population: 0.94 male(s)/female (2005 est.)

Infant mortality rate: 8.51 deaths/1,000 live births (2005 est.)

Life expectancy at birth:
male: 70.3 years
female: 78.8 years (2004 est.)

Total fertility rate: 1.39 children born/woman (2004 est.)

Ethnic groups: Polish 96.7%, German 0.4%, Byelorussian 0.1%, Ukrainian 0.1%, other 0.7%, not declared 2.0% (Census 2002)

Religions: Roman Catholic 95% (baptized), Eastern Orthodox 1.3%, Protestant 0.4%, Jehovah's Witnesses 0.3%, Greek Catholic 0.2% (2006)

• see Religion in Poland and Catholic Church in Poland

Languages: Polish 97.8% (Census 2002)

Literacy:
definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 99.8%
male: 99.8%
female: 99.7% (2004 est.)

Poland historically contained many languages, cultures and religions on its soil. The country had a particularly large Jewish population prior to the Second World War, when the Nazi Holocaust caused Poland's Jewish population, estimated at 3 million before the war, to drop to just 300,000. The outcome of the war, particularly the westward shift of Poland's borders to the area between the Curzon line and the Oder-Neisse line, coupled with post-war expulsion of minorities, gave Poland an appearance of homogeneity.

As of 2002, 36,983,700 people, or 96.74% of the population consider themselves Polish (Census 2002), while 471,500 (1.23%) declared another nationality. 774,900 people (2.03%) did not declare any nationality. The largest nationalities and ethnic groups in Poland are Silesians, Germans (most in the former Opole Voivodeship), Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Russians, Jews and Belarusians. The Polish language, a member of the West Slavic branch of the Slavic languages, functions as the official language of Poland. English and German are the most common second languages studied and spoken.

In recent years, Poland's population has decreased because of an increase in emigration and a sharp drop in the birth rate. In 2006, the census office estimated the total population of Poland at 38,536,869, a slight rise on the 2002 figure of 38,230,080. Since Poland's accession to the European Union, a significant number of Poles have immigrated to Western European countries such as the United Kingdom, Germany and Ireland in search of work. Some organizations have stated that Polish emigration is primarily due to Poland's high unemployment rate (11.4%), with Poles searching for better work opportunities abroad. In April 2007, the Polish population of the United Kingdom had risen to approximately 300,000 and estimates place the Polish population in Ireland at 65,000.

Polish minorities are still present in the neighboring countries of Ukraine, Belarus, and Lithuania, as well as in other countries (see Poles for population numbers). Altogether, the number of ethnic Poles living abroad is estimated to be around 20 million. The largest number of Poles outside of the Poland can be found in the United States.