Which municipalities are growing and which are shrinking?
Short answer: Sweden has grown from 8.9 to 10.6 million inhabitants since 2000, but 113 of 289 municipalities have shrunk. Dorotea, Övertorneå and Sorsele have lost between a quarter and a third, while Sundbyberg, Upplands-Bro and Nykvarn have grown by more than half. Since more people died than were born in 223 municipalities in 2025, migration is what decides whether a municipality grows. Immigration has almost halved since the peak in 2016, births are the lowest since 2002, and 180 municipalities shrank in 2025.
How the metropolitan areas, the larger towns and the rural municipalities have grown and shrunk, with migration and distance to services, is on Rural and urban.
How many people live here, from the 1700s up to 2070.
Sweden
Sweden is counted from 1749 and the municipalities from 1968, within today's borders. Choose “From” above to see a shorter period.
The dotted part is Statistics Sweden's projection, which assumes that births, mortality and migration patterns continue roughly as in recent years. It is not a forecast, and for small municipalities the uncertainty is large.
Births and deaths, moves and immigration.
The sum of the three does not always match the change in population exactly, since Statistics Sweden also makes adjustments in the register.
Immigration and emigration since 1900 and the reasons people came are on Migration.
The municipalities that have grown and shrunk the most.
Which ages move in and out.
Net domestic migration is people moving in from other municipalities minus those moving out to them. Net immigration is immigrants minus emigrants. Total for five years, by age at the move.
How many people each person of working age supports.
The dependency ratio is the number of children, young people and older people per 100 people aged 20 to 64. 100 means there are as many outside as inside working age. Sweden is counted from 1860 and the municipalities from 1968.
Fewer children, longer lives and the role of immigration.
Sweden's population is growing more slowly than it has for a long time. In 2025 it grew by 17,800 people, the smallest increase of the 2000s. 97,500 children were born, the lowest number since 2002, and fertility fell to 1.42 children per woman, the lowest ever recorded. Immigration fell by almost a quarter compared with 2024, and net immigration was about 12,000 people.
The birth rate has fallen across the Nordic region since around 2010, but in 2025 it turned upwards in Norway, Denmark and Finland while it continued downwards in Sweden. Finland is lowest. Life expectancy is high in all five countries, and Swedish women and men live longest. The share of people born abroad is higher in Sweden than in the neighbouring countries, but the countries count in different ways.
Research says that low fertility is not only about people having children later, but about more people never having children at all. On immigration the picture is mixed: integration takes a long time and costs public finances, but a Danish study does not find that refugee immigration pushed down wages for those already living there.
Population in the Nordic countries
| Country | Children per woman 2025 | Life expectancy at birth 2025, men and women | Born abroad 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sweden | 1.42 | 82.5 and 85.6 years | 20.8 percent |
| Norway | 1.48 | 81.6 and 84.9 years | 17.5 percent |
| Denmark | 1.51 | 80.3 and 83.9 years | 13.0 percent |
| Finland | 1.30, preliminary | 79.8 and 84.7 years | 10.9 percent |
| Iceland | 1.56 | 81.0 and 84.2 years | 19.6 percent |
Sources: Statistics Sweden, Statistics Norway, Statistics Denmark, Statistics Finland and Statistics Iceland. The share born abroad applies at the turn of the year 2025 to 2026 and follows each country's own definition: Sweden and Finland count everyone born abroad, while Norway, Denmark and Iceland count only immigrants with foreign-born parents, so those three get lower shares. Sweden and Denmark are our own calculation from the countries' figures.
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Are fewer children being born, or just later?
Fewer. Fertility in the Nordics has fallen since around 2010, mainly because fewer women have their first child. Women born in the late 1980s are expected to have about 1.8 children on average, against 2.0 for those born in 1970. Finland is expected to end up lowest, below 1.6.
Hellstrand, Nisén, Miranda, Fallesen, Dommermuth and Myrskylä (2021), Demography.
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Is it the economy that makes fewer people have children?
Not only. The decline began with the financial crisis of 2008, but it does not track how the economy developed afterwards, and it has looked almost the same across the Nordic countries. The researchers suggest that perceived uncertainty about the future may be part of the explanation.
Comolli et al. (2021), European Journal of Population.
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Can policy get people to have children?
It can at least affect when. The Swedish speed premium, which lets parents keep the same parental benefit if the next child arrives within a certain time, made Swedes have their next child sooner. The study shows that Swedish-born parents with different levels of education responded about equally, while immigrants from outside the Nordics hardly responded at all.
Andersson, Hoem and Duvander (2006), Demographic Research.
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Do house prices affect the birth rate?
Yes, in different directions. In the US, rising house prices led to more births among those who owned their home and fewer among those who rented.
Dettling and Kearney (2014), Journal of Public Economics.
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How long does it take refugees to find work?
A long time, especially for women. In 2019, 57 percent of men and 30 percent of women aged 20 to 64 who had arrived as refugees or relatives of refugees in the past ten years had a job. After 20 years or more the share was around 80 percent for both, compared with 86 percent among those born in Sweden.
Statistics Sweden (2022), Employment among refugees and their relatives 2019.
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What does refugee immigration cost?
In 2007, roughly 1 percent of GDP was redistributed through public finances to the refugee population in Sweden. About four fifths of that was due to lower tax revenue, since fewer were working, and the rest to higher spending.
Ruist (2015), Population and Development Review.
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Does immigration lower wages for those already living here?
Not according to a Danish study of refugees dispersed across municipalities from 1986 to 1998. Low-educated Danes moved into jobs with less manual work, and their wages and employment rose rather than fell. The study covers one country and one period.
Foged and Peri (2016), American Economic Journal: Applied Economics.
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Is it good or bad to live where fellow countrymen live?
It can be good. When Sweden dispersed refugees across municipalities, those who ended up where more people from the same country lived earned more, about 4 to 5 percent more per standard deviation in the share of compatriots.
Edin, Fredriksson and Åslund (2003), Quarterly Journal of Economics.
Where the figures come from.
- Source: Statistics Sweden, population statistics. Population, births, deaths, domestic moves, immigration and emigration per municipality and year, moves by age, dependency ratios and the population projection. Further back, Statistics Sweden's older tables: Sweden from 1749 (population development since 1749) and by age from 1860, municipalities from 1968 recalculated to today's boundaries. The old tables give the same figures as today's for 2000, so the seam there doesn't show.
- Our own processing of Statistics Sweden's data: figures per 1,000 inhabitants, indices, the age groups, the national projection as the sum of the municipalities' and the national domestic moves as the sum of all municipalities'.
- Measured but not included here: the reason for immigration (work, family, studies, protection). Statistics Sweden reports it only for the country, not per municipality.
Population, age structure and projection are also map layers on the map and on every municipality page.