Demographics trends in the Southern Region

Census 2016 preliminary results show that Ireland’s population has continued to grow since 2011, increasing by 169,724 persons to 4,757,976 - an increase of 3.7%.

The preliminary results also show a population of 1,585,992 persons in the Southern Region, a 2.9% increase on the 2011 Census. No significant changes in gender composition were observed in the period.

The density in the Region is 53 persons per  Km² in a region of 29,653 Km².

Population change varied widely across the country ranging from a high of over 8% increase in Fingal to a low of -1.5% in Donegal.

Among the fastest growing counties were the four administrative areas of Dublin along with the commuter belt counties of Meath, Kildare and Laois and the cities of Cork and Galway.

While most counties experienced some level of population growth three counties witnessed population decline over the five years, namely Donegal (-1.5%), Mayo (-0.2%) and Sligo (-0.1%).

Three other counties grew by less than 1%, namely South Tipperary¹ which increased by 0.72%, Roscommon by 0.58% and Leitrim which grew by just 0.55%. 

Within the Southern Region, the increase across the census period was 2.9% or an increase of 44,553 persons. The lowest increases within the region were observed in Clare (1.2%) and South Tipperary (0.7%). The strongest increases were seen in Cork City (5.4%) followed closely by Cork County (4.2%).