Greece's population decline: what the official numbers and projections say

What the census counted

The Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT) runs a population and housing census every ten years. The 2021 round had a reference date of 22 October 2021 and was, according to ELSTAT, the first digital census in Greece. Its final results for the resident population, published on 17 March 2023, put the population at 10,482,487: 5,125,977 men and 5,356,510 women.

The same release gives the 2011 figure by region. Added up, it comes to 10,816,286. That is a fall of about 334,000 people, or 3.1%, in ten years.

One note on numbers you may see elsewhere: the census also counted a separate "registered population", meaning the citizens registered in each municipality. That is a different measure from the resident population, so the two totals should not be mixed. For the resident population, use the final March 2023 release.

A very uneven decline

Only two of Greece's thirteen regions grew between 2011 and 2021. The table below uses ELSTAT's regional figures; the percentage changes are our own calculation from them.

The other regions (Ipeiros, Dytiki Ellada, Peloponnisos, Ionia Nisia, Voreio Aigaio) all lost between about 1.6% and 6.6%. The pattern inside regions is sharper still, because ELSTAT's release goes down to each municipality. In the regional unit of Drama, for example, the municipality of Drama fell by about 5.5%, while Kato Nevrokopi went from 7,860 to 5,323 residents, a drop of about a third.

What Eurostat projects

Eurostat publishes long-term population projections for EU countries. The current round, EUROPOP2025, starts from the population on 1 January 2025. Eurostat is explicit that these are "what-if" scenarios, not forecasts: they show what would happen under a set of assumptions about fertility, mortality and migration.

In the baseline scenario for Greece (dataset proj_25np):

• 2025: about 10.37 million
• 2050: about 9.18 million
• 2100: about 7.25 million, roughly 30% below 2025

For comparison, the same exercise projects the EU as a whole to fall from 451.8 million in 2025 to 398.8 million in 2100, a drop of 11.7%. Eurostat highlights Latvia (−33.9%), Lithuania (−33.4%) and Poland (−31.6%) as the largest declines; Greece's baseline, at about −30%, is not far behind.

Fewer births, more older people

Low fertility is a large part of the story. Eurostat's fertility indicators put Greece's total fertility rate at 1.24 children per woman in 2024, below the EU figure of 1.34.

Ageing shows up clearly in the projection. Summing the single-year age groups in the baseline scenario, people aged 65 and over make up about 24% of Greece's population in 2025 and about 35% in 2050. The share aged 80 and over rises from about 7% to about 13% over the same period.

How to read these numbers

• Census and projection are different things. The census is a count. The projection is a calculation under assumptions, with a different start date and method, so the two totals are not directly comparable.
• Migration is the big unknown. Eurostat also publishes sensitivity tests next to the baseline. For Greece in 2100, the "higher migration" test gives about 8.43 million, the "lower migration" test about 6.08 million, and a "no migration" test about 5.13 million. The range is wide, and that is the point.
• National totals hide local stories. A municipality losing a tenth of its people in a decade faces very different choices about schools, clinics and transport from one that is growing.

This is where scenario tools can help planners: testing how school, health or transport needs might change under several population paths, rather than one. Kassandra Labs is at concept stage, and this post reports official figures only, not our own forecast. Our migration and population page describes the kind of questions a population twin could explore.

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