Germany Flag

Germany

Capital:
Berlin
Continent:
Europe
Region(s):
Western Europe
Largest Cities:
Berlin, Hamburg, Munich
Abbreviation:
DEU

Germany is a country in Europe, known for medieval castles and modern cities. It has a population of over 84 million, making it the 19th largest country in the world. Its official language is Portuguese, and the capital is Berlin. Germany has a advanced economy with strong manufacturing sector.

84.1M
Total Population
19
Population Rank
241.21
Density (km²)
-477.1K 0.11%
Annual Population Growth

Population of Germany

Germany's population structure shows a slightly lower male to female ratio of 0.98 to 1, with a median male age of 44.62 years old and a median female age of 48.01 years old. The highest concentration of adults under 75 years old is in the 59 and 60 year-old age groups, while the lowest concentration is in the 18 and 19 year-old age groups.

Germany Population

Data after 2022 is projected based on recent change

Germany Population Clock

Germany Population*
84,338,341
Births per Day
1,938
Deaths per Day
2,852
Emigrations per Day
915
Net Change per Day
1,828
2025 Population Change*
67,636

* As of 2/6/2025

1 birth

Every 44.6 seconds

1 death

Every 30.3 seconds

1 emigrant

Every 1.6 minutes

1 person

Every 47.3 seconds

Population by City

City
2025 Pop.
Berlin3,426,354
Hamburg1,739,117
Munich1,260,391
Koeln963,395
Frankfurt am Main650,000
Essen593,085
Stuttgart589,793
Dortmund588,462
Duesseldorf573,057
Bremen546,501

Germany Overview

Germany Demographics

There are four groups considered “national minorities,” which means their ancestors lived in their regions for many centuries. These groups are the Sorbs, Danes, Frisians, and the Roma and Sinti. There are about 50,000 Danes in the northernmost region of Germany. The Sorbs, who are a Slavic people, live in the Lusatia region. There are large populations of Frisians in Lower Saxony and the western coast of Schleswig-Holstein.

About 3.4 million Germans are living abroad.

Germany Religion, Economy and Politics

The majority of Germans are Christian, either Roman Catholic (29.9%) or Protestant (29.8%), although 1.3% of the population are also Orthodox Christians. Islam is the second largest religion in Germany, with an estimated 6.1% of the population according to a 2017 Pew Research Survey. Germany has the second largest Muslim population in Europe, at nearly 5 million, and is expected to grow significantly in the coming decades.

The largest single group, however, is non-believers, who make up 34% of the population. The number of atheists and agnostics is far higher in Eastern Germany than in Western Germany, largely because of the Communist East German state’s general policy of discouraging religious belief.

German Population History

Censuses have only been intermittently conducted in Germany, and the last one took place in 1987. Instead, the German Government relies on extrapolations from sample data collected from a small percentage (around 1%) of the population. Still, Germany did participate in the EU-wide census in 2011, which gave much-needed insight into the country’s population.

Of all the 27 European Union states, Germany has the highest percentage of immigrants in its population. Over 10 million people living in Germany today were born outside of Germany — that’s about 12% of the German population. Most immigrants come from other European countries, particularly from Turkey, Russia, Poland and Italy. Germany is the second most popular destination for immigrants in the world after the United States.

The German Government has been keen to encourage immigration over the past fifty years — partly to address longer term demographic problems in Germany, such as its low birth rate, and partly to address shorter term labor shortages.

Germany Population Growth

The country is now spending about $265 million every year on family subsidies in an attempt to reverse a declining population, with little success. Germany has many issues to overcome in order to address this issue, including attitudes in the country toward working women with children who are dubbed “raven mothers” with an implication of neglectfulness or abandonment; additionally, immigrants are not always welcomed with open arms.

Some experts worry that the country has waited too long to try to address its population problem, and raising fertility rates has proven difficult. Giving money to families and tax breaks for stay-at-home mothers and married couples has done little, and demographers believe expanding after-school and daycare programs would be a better investment for the country.

The country will also need to start bringing in more immigrants to fill hundreds of thousands of vacant skilled jobs.

Germany is a representation of the declining fertility rates Europe has seen over the past few decades, and Germany found that it had lost 1.5 million people in its most recent census. This news was a bit of a surprise to the country, which had not conducted a single census since its reunification, even after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. It seems Germany missed this population loss because its people value privacy, and the last census in 1987 was very strongly opposed, and the one in 2011 was only done because it was required by the European Union.

Most of the 1.5 million who disappeared were migrants, who apparently did not de-register when they left the country, and thus lived on in records. Germany was found to have 1.1 million fewer foreigners than it thought, and 428,000 fewer Germans.