New Estonian Stats

The Estonian Statistical Office has posted some new population stats for 2005 that are interesting.

For starters, the population of Estonia is now 1,347,510. There are 620,600 men and 726,910 women, - or men make up 46 percent of the population, while women are 54 percent. That ratio has held steady since 2000.


When it comes to the ethnicity pie, the percentage of ethnic Estonians has slightly increased over the past five years, from 67.9 in the 2000 census to 68.5 percent of the population according to the results posted last month. The percentage of ethnic Russians has fallen slightly - down to 25.70 from 25.84 in 2000. Other minority ethnic groups, Ukrainians, Belarussians, and Finns also declined in their share of the population.

Another interesting thing to see is which counties grew in population at the expense of other counties and cities. For example, despite an overall decrease in the population of about 1.7 percent, some places have actually increased in population over the past five years.

The population of Tartu has risen from 101,241 to 101,483, which is interesting considering that the numbers should have declined anyway due to the overall population decrease. Most other counties and cities experienced losses that are in agreement with the overall decrease of 1.7 percent. However, Ida-Viru County's population dropped 4 percent over the past five years.