On 1 January 2005, the 25 EU member-countries had a population of 459.5 million, 2.3 million more than the year before. The population increase was mainly due to migration, as well as due to the natural increase. As many as 1.9 million of the 2.3 million new EU residents are immigrants.
At the same time, the population of the United States increased by 0.9 percent, that of Japan by 0.1 percent, while the population of Russia decreased by 0.5 percent. The world's two most populous countries also reported a population growth - China rose by 0.6 percent and India by 1.4 percent.
The populations of most EU members increased in 2004 - the largest increases were recorded in Cyprus (2.54 percent), Ireland (2 percent) and Spain (1.6 percent).
A population decrease was reported in Lithuania (0.6 percent), Latvia (0.55 percent), Estonia (0.3 percent), Hungary (0.19 percent) and Germany and Poland (0.04 percent each).
Eurostat, which also releases data for Bulgaria and Romania, which are acceding countries, and Croatia and Turkey, which are candidate countries, reported that Croatia's population increased from 4,441,300 to 4,443,400.
The highest demographic growth rate was reported in Ireland, France and Cyprus, while the lowest rate was reported in Latvia, Hungary and Lithuania.
The fertility rate (i.e. average number of children per woman) increased from 1.48 in 2003 to 1.50 in 2004. The highest fertility rates were found in Ireland, France, Finland and Denmark. No member state, however, reached the replacement level of 2.1. The only country to have exceeded that level is a candidate country, Turkey, with 2.2 children per woman, while the other candidate country, Croatia, reported 1.35 children per woman, an increase from the year before (1.33).
The lowest fertility rate was reported in Slovenia (1.22), which is followed by the Czech Republic and Poland.
In the EU 25, 31.6 percent of children were born outside of marriage, and the highest shares were found in Estonia (57.8 percent), Sweden (55.4 percent), and Denmark. The lowest shares were reported in Cyprus, Greece, Italy and Poland.
In Croatia, 10.4 percent of children born in 2004 were born outside of marriage, which is slightly higher than in 2003, but much higher than in 1980, when the share was 5.1 percent.