Six out of ten Valencian municipalities have lost population since 2012, according to the census which shows a decrease of 31,299 inhabitants in the last decade despite the increase compared to 2019 – The cities of Valencia and Castelló experienced a demographic decline, while Alicante grew moderately.
Overall, more than 6 out of 10 municipalities in the Valencian Community have lost inhabitants in the last decade, according to data extracted from the latest official population balance published by the National Statistics Institute (INE) on Wednesday, December 21. The report confirms that, in 2022, in the Valencian Community there are 32,000 fewer people on the census than on the same dates in 2012. In other words, the Valencian population has decreased by 1.6% in the last 10 years, despite the fact that between 2019 and 2022 has risen 2.6% due to a positive migratory balance caused by the pandemic.
The demographic decline has not followed a defined pattern, since despite the fact that the loss of inhabitants especially affects the smallest municipalities in rural areas, it has also gone down in some of the largest cities in the Valencian territory. That trend that indicated that the most populated cities were gaining censuses is still present, but it is not as marked as a decade ago. Namely: seven of the twenty most inhabited towns in the Region have lost population, including Valencia, with a decrease of 0.6% in the last 10 years, and Castelló de la Plana, which has lost no less than 4.7%. of people since 2010.
Valencia, with 797,028 inhabitants (compared to 792,492 in 2012) doubles the population of Alicante (334,678), the only one of the three provincial capitals that has experienced an increase in population, although it has been minimal. It has 1.1% more inhabitants compared to 2012. Elche has gained 2.1% of registered people, while the city of Torrent, the fifth most populous in the Valencian Community, now has 4.5% more of people than a decade ago. Another increase that draws attention is that of Sant Vicent del Raspeig, with more than 4,000 inhabitants gained.
In negative terms, the case of Torrevieja stands out, the Valencian municipality that has lost the most population on average, with almost a 20% demographic drop, with a total of 82,842 residents registered on 1 January 2021. But it has its explanation: the main cause is the cleansing of the census ordered by the INE upon detecting that foreign residents were added for years without later confirming their effective removal from the register, with which the statistics could only increase. In other words, when registered residents left the municipality, they failed to remove themselves from the register, and so the population seems to increase, falsely. The sharp decline has occurred in other tourist cities such as Orihuela for the same reason, now with 78,940 residents as of 1 January 2021. Secondly, there is an unknown number of foreign residents who returned to their countries of origin during the economic crisis, a trend that has recently added to the population reduction in the case of the British due to Brexit.
There were 4,743 Brits registered in Torrevieja on 1 January 2021, and 10,025 Brits registered in Orihuela, accounting for 5.72% and 12.7% of the population, respectively. In the 2011 census, a decade ago, there were 102,136 registered residents of Torrevieja, of which 12,994 were Brits, 12.7% of the population, an exact percentage of that in Orihuela today. In Orihuela in the 2011 census, there were 88,714 registered residents, of which 18,130 were Brits, some 20.4% of the population.
The province of Castellón has lost close to 10,000 registered people compared to 2012 (it has gone from 604,564 to 590,616 inhabitants). 75% of its municipalities have seen their population decline in the last 10 years and the majority are from the interior, increasingly depopulated. Specifically, just over thirty towns gain neighbours or stay the same. Mainly, it is done by medium-sized municipalities such as Moncofa, Almassora, Benicarló, Almenara, Benicàssim, Sant Jordi, Vinarós, Borriol or Cabanes, and to a lesser extent, Vila-real.
On the other side is the situation that many inland populations are going through. These are the villages that are furthest away from the large regional centres of reference (the most isolated), those with fewer endowments and those located in clearly regressive regions, such as Alto Mijares, or with guiding nuclei that attract inhabitants (Els Ports, with Morallea and Villafranca and other towns that are still attractive due to their size). There are municipalities that in a decade have lost a quarter of their neighbourhood.
The province of Alicante has about 42,000 fewer inhabitants (from 1,943,910 to 1,901,594), although the number of towns in which there has been a demographic decline is reduced in this case by half.
In the province of Valencia, the figure is more balanced, since in 109 municipalities there has been an increase in the registers and in 154 there has been a population decrease. Gandia, the eighth most populous city in the Valencian Community, has lost 3.9% of its inhabitants in this decade, while other large cities such as Paterna and Burjassot have gained 6.7% and 1.8%.
