The population of Norway is steadily increasing, and last year we had 0.9% more inhabitants. The biggest increase was in the number of men.
At year’s end, there was a total of 5.258.317 people living in Norway. This is an increase of 44.300 people. Akershus county saw the biggest
growth, while Oslo now has 667,000 inhabitants, according to figures from Statistics Norway (SSB).
Since 2008, the number of foreign nationals residing in the country has more than doubled. In 2008, 266,000 foreign nationals lived in Norway,
while by January the 1st of this year, that number had risen to 559, 218.
In 2008, the figure corresponded to 5.6% of the population, while in 2017, the level of people with a non-Norwegian country of origin had increased
to 10.6%.
In 2016, most new foreign citizens came from Syria. Many of these refugees were granted residence permits in Norway during the year and are now
registered as residents.
Yet it is Poles who are the largest group of foreigners living in Norway, followed by Swedes and Lithuanians.
Figures from Statistics Norway show that there is a predominance of men in the Norwegian population. That has been the case since 2010. The number
of men grew by 24,000 last year, and as of the 1st of January, 2017, there was a ‘surplus’ of nearly 40,000 males in Norwegian society.
Source: NTB scanpix / Norway Today
