Millions of people left the country. The population of an abandoned country in Europe is about to disappear. from Onur Türk's blog

​Albania has 2,402,113 inhabitants, 419,831 fewer than in 2011, according to the results of the latest national census published on Friday, AFP informs.

author

NEWS AGAINST
"The resident population of the Republic of Albania amounted to 2,402,113 people on September 18, 2023, a decrease of about 420,000 people compared to the 2011 census," according to the report prepared by the Statistical Institute of Albania (Instat).

A "continuous decline since the 1990s, largely caused by emigration", adds Instat.

Before the 1990s and the fall of Enver Hoxha's communist regime, one of the harshest in the world, Albania experienced constant demographic growth, according to Agerpres.

In the period that followed, marked by an unprecedented economic crisis in 1997, a collapse in the birthrate and mass emigration, and until today, Albania has seen an average of 50,000 Albanians leave a year, according to Instat.

Also, this census allowed for the first time the inhabitants to declare themselves of Bulgarian or Bosnian origin - in addition to the pre-existing categories (Greek, Roma, Egyptian). Of these, 7,057 declared themselves Bulgarians and 2,963 Bosnians.

The 2023 census is the 12th census in the last 100 years in Albania.