|
|
Population Of Paris Historical population Metropolitan area of Paris (It should be noted that the limits of the metropolitan area vary year after year, furthermore only the last two data are official as provided by the French national statistics office INSEE, the other data are just estimates compiled from several sources.) 59 BC: 25,000 inhabitants AD 150: 80,000 (peak of Roman era) 510: 30,000 (losses after invasions of 3rd and 4th centuries) 1000: 20,000 (lowest point after Viking invasions) 1200: 110,000 (recovery of the Middle Ages) 1328: 250,000 (blossoming of the 13th century, golden age of King Saint Louis) 1500: 200,000 (losses of the Black Plague and Hundred Years' War) 1550: 275,000 (Renaissance recovery) 1594: 210,000 (losses of religious and civil wars) 1634: 420,000 (spectacular recovery under King Henry IV and Richelieu) 1700: 515,000 1750: 565,000 1789: 630,000 (peak of prosperous 18th century) 1801: 548,000 (losses of French Revolution and wars) 1835: 1,000,000 1860: 2,000,000 (fastest historical growth under Emperor Napoleon III and Haussmann) 1885: 3,000,000 1905: 4,000,000 1911: 4,500,000 1921: 4,850,000 (stagnation due to losses of First World War) 1931: 5,600,000 1936: 6,000,000 1946: 5,850,000 (losses of Second World War) 1954: 6,550,000 1968: 8,368,500 (end of postwar baby boom, end of immigration surplus for Paris, 1982: 9,400,000 henceforth migration flows become negative, population growth is significantly slower) 1990: 10,291,851 1999: 11,174,743 City of Paris 1801: 546,856 inhabitants 1811: 622,636 1831: 785,862 1851: 1,053,262 1856: 1,174,346 1861: 1,696,141 (new city limits in 1860; population in 1856 in the new city limits was 1,538,613) 1872: 1,851,792 1881: 2,269,023 1901: 2,714,068 1911: 2,888,110 1921: 2 906 472 1926: 2,871,429 1936: 2,829,753 1946: 2,725,374 1954: 2,850,189 1962: 2,790,091 1968: 2,590,771 1975: 2,299,830 1982: 2,176,243 1990: 2,152,423 1999: 2,125,246 2004: 2,142,800 (February 2004 estimates) Immigration Since the Middle Ages, at which time it was the largest city of the Western World, Paris has always attracted foreigners. From the Dutch and Swedish students of the Latin Quarter in the 14th century to the English Jacobite refugees in the 17th century, from the Polish nationalist refugees in the early 19th century to the Belgian workers in the late 19th century, from the Sephardic Jews of North Africa in the middle of the 20th century to the Africans and Eastern Asians of today, Paris has received waves after waves of immigrants, which have enriched her. Today, like other world cities, Paris is largely a multicultural city. French censuses never ask questions regarding ethnicity or religion, therefore it is not possible to know the ethnic composition of the metropolitan area of Paris. Still, some interesting data can be extracted from French censuses. At the 1999 census, there were 2,169,406 people living in the metropolitan area of Greater Paris who were born outside of Metropolitan France, which was 19.4% of the total population of the metropolitan area. As a comparison: at the 2001 UK census, 19.5% of the total population of Greater London metropolitan area was born outside of the (metropolitan) United Kingdom, while at the 2000 US census 27.8% of the total population of the metropolitan area of New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island was born outside of the United States (50 states), and 31.8% of the total population of the metropolitan area of Los Angeles-Riverside-Orange County was born outside of the United States (50 states). The most numerous groups of foreign-born residents of Paris are the following (roughly listed from most numerous to least numerous): At the 1999 French census, there were 474,768 people living in the metropolitan area of Greater Paris who were living outside of Metropolitan France in 1990, which was 4.2% of the total population of the metropolitan area in 1999. Patterns of immigration to Paris have changed significantly in the 1990s. Portuguese immigration has totally stopped, while new groups of immigrants have appeared. The most important groups of immigrants since 1990 are the following: - Chinese people from Mainland China: coming mostly from Manchuria and the region of Wenzhou in Zhejiang province. This immigration is relatively new, appearing in the mid-1990s, is mostly illegal, and has been spectacular in the recent years, with Chinese people replacing North Africans and Black Africans as the largest group of immigrants to Paris. Although the French police is fighting against this illegal immigration (and the worker slavery associated with it), and a treaty was signed between France and the People's Republic of China to hinder illegal immigration, recent reports suggest that Chinese immigration in Paris is still on the rise. Figures fluctuate widely from sources to sources, but it seems there could be as much as a quarter million Chinese people living in the metropolitan area of Paris in 2004 (including the Chinese people from Indochina arrived earlier), the largest concentration of Chinese people in Europe, larger than even in Greater London (where only about 60,000 Chinese people live, according to UK government figures).
- Arabs from North Africa and Black Africans: the immigration of these two groups has been substantially reduced by a tightening of the borders engineered by successive French governments. In the 1990s, immigrants from North Africa and Black Africa came mostly through the scheme of family reunions (women and children coming to live with their husband or father already living in France). An unknown number of North Africans and Black Africans also came illegally outside of these family reunions schemes. Some were deported back to Africa, but most of these illegal immigrants are still in France, without papers and living with the threat of deportation should they be discovered (although thousands of illegal immigrants were given official papers under the center-left government of Lionel Jospin in the late 1990s after pressure from French associations defending the rights of immigrants).
- Eastern Europeans, a lot of them Romanians, a group on the rise since the fall of the Berlin Wall
Compared with the United Kingdom, South Asian immigrants are still not very numerous in Paris, although their presence has significantly increased in the 1990s. Compared with the United States, Latin American and Filipino immigrants are extremely few in Paris. Middle Eastern immigrants are also few, although there is a sizeable Lebanese community (mostly rich Christian Lebanese exiles), due to the old ties between France and Lebanon. Russians are also extremely few in Paris, despite an old tradition of Russian presence in Paris before the Communist revolution of 1917. Finally, it should be remembered that the figures given here are for people permanently living in the metropolitan area of Paris. However, Paris is the most visited city in the world, with a massive influx of tourists at any time in the year. Most of these visitors are foreigners, so that on any day of the year the actual foreign population being present in the metropolitan area of Paris is probably higher than the 19.4% figure given above. This fact is most felt in the center of the city of Paris, where it is possible to walk in some streets where most people crossed are foreign tourists. See also
|
 |