Greek Population
Demographics of Greece
- The current population of Greece is 11,150,356 as of Friday, January 12, 2019, based on the latest United Nations estimates.
- Greece population is equivalent to 0.15% of the total world population.
- Greece ranks number 82 in the list of countries (and dependencies) by population.
- The population density in Greece is 87 per Km2 (224 people per mi2).
- The total land area is 128,900 Km2 (49,769 sq. miles)
- The median age in Greece is 43.7 years.
- 78.3 % of the population is urban (8,738,252 people in 2018)
It is difficult to trace the origin of the Greek population whose history goes back to more than 4000 years. It is believed that Greek-speaking tribes have lived in the Balkan peninsula since the beginning of the second millennium B.C. The first information about the population of Greece concern the Minoan era. It is estimated that around 1500 B.C., 1.5 million people lived in Greece.
“We are all Greeks. Our laws, our literature, our religion, our arts have their root in Greece. . . .” Percy Bysshe Shelley
Athens grew as a city of more than 250,000 inhabitants. Furthermore, many colonies were soon created all over Greece, Minor Asia, and other Mediterranean areas, so that there existed probably more than five million Greeks during the 4th century B.C.
The enormous expansion of the Greek territory during the period of Alexander the Great was followed by its collapse during the period of the Roman Empire and later by the creation of the Byzantine Empire, which is considered as the continuation of the Greek nation.
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No historical demographic data exist for the entire Byzantine period. The conquest of Constantinople by the Turks and the 370 years of Turkish occupation suppressed the Greek population, but not its national identity. Thus a war of Independence started in 1821 and a new State was born in 1828.
The demographic history of modern Greece starts in 1828 when the first official census revealed that the new Nation occupied an area of 47,516 square Km., sparsely inhabited by 753,400 Greeks.
During the twentieth century, millions of Greeks emigrated to the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and Germany, and formed a large Greek diaspora. The migration balance has started to show positive numbers since 1970, but until the beginning of the 1990s, the main influx was of returning Greek migrants or the Greeks of Pontus or from states such as Georgia, Turkey, the Czech Republic and other countries of the former Soviet Union.
