Europe's population officially above 500m
(BRUSSELS) - Europe's population crossed the half-a-billion mark officially this year, statisticians said on Tuesday, with an estimated 1.4 million more people living in the 27-nation European Union.
The EU's population as of January 1, 2010, was logged at 501.1 million, compared to 499.7 million one year earlier, with 900,000 immigrants entering the bloc and a natural increase of 500,000, the Eurostat agency said.
More than five million children were born in 2009 across the EU, with the highest birth rates recorded in Ireland, Britain and France, and the lowest in Germany and Austria.
Eurostat said that in "relative terms," those countries with the largest net inflows were Luxembourg, Sweden, Slovenia, Italy and Belgium -- with Ireland and Lithuania losing the most through emigration.
By comparison with leading rivals on the global stage, China's population will near 1.4 billion by 2015, according to media reports there this month, while India, last logged in 2001 at just over a billion, is currently struggling to complete its new census.
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