The Central Statistical Office has published new data from the 2021 National Census of Population and Housing. Interesting information is provided by the data on the change in the number of inhabitants of towns and villages in Polish voivodships. In Poland as a whole, the city population decreased by 3%, while the rural population increased by 1%.
In most Polish regions, the number of urban residents decreased between 2011 and 2021 years. The highest decrease (by 8%) was recorded in the Łódź region. The Mazowieckie region is the only region where the number of urban residents has increased (by 5%).
The situation is different in the countryside. In almost half of the regions, the number of people living in the countryside has increased. The highest increase was recorded in Pomerania (12%), while the highest decrease was in the Opole region (by 8%).
The census confirms the phenomenon of increasing the number of rural inhabitants, which has been observed for many years. Analysts indicate “trends related to population changes in urban and rural areas” and regional factors, i.e. those that cannot be explained either by general demographic trends in Poland or by trends in population changes in rural and urban areas on a larger than regional scale.
“In some voivodships, regional factors were decisive for the changes in the number of inhabitants of towns and villages. For example, in the Lubuskie and Małopolskie voivodships, regional factors compensated for the decline, and in the case of Mazowieckie voivodship they increased the number of inhabitants of urban areas”, stated the experts in the analysis included in the latest issue of” Tygodnik Gospodarczy PIE”.
In Podlaskie Voivodeship, regional factors hardly influenced the changes, which resulted mainly from national and structural trends. For example, in Dolnośląskie voivodship, “regional conditions meant that the increase in the number of rural inhabitants was higher than can be expected only from the analysis of changes at the national and structural level” summarized the PIE experts.
Adrian Andrzejewski order