In the Nordic Region, a trend towards ageing and population decline has been observed in many rural municipalities. As this map shows, this trend would have been even more pronounced without international migration.
Over the period shown on the map the population of the Nordic Region grew by over one million inhabitants. 72% of this growth was due to immigration. The population growth mainly takes place in the bigger urban areas, for example 47% of the population growth in the Nordic countries between 2011 and 2015 was confined to the capital regions. Without immigration, this figure rises to 92%. This shows the broad geographic spread of immigrants across the Nordic Region.
At the municipal level, the map shows that 416 (34%) of the Nordic municipalities would have experienced population growth even without immigration (the green areas on the map), 310 (26%) of the Nordic municipalities experienced population growth because of immigration (the yellow areas on the map) and 485 (40%) of the municipalities experienced population decrease (the red areas on the map) during the period 2011 to 2016.