In January 2020, the municipality of

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the Largest cities of the Europ ...

, capital of

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

, had a population of 3,345,894 registered inhabitants in an area of . Thus, the city's

population density Population density (in agriculture: Stock (disambiguation), standing stock or plant density) is a measurement of population per unit land area. It is mostly applied to humans, but sometimes to other living organisms too. It is a key geographical ...

was about 5,337 inhabitants per km². Madrid is Spain's largest city and the second most populous city proper in the European Union, after

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

Historical change

The population of Madrid has overall increased since the city became the capital of Spain in the mid-16th century, and has stabilised at approximately 3 million since the 1970s. From 1970 until the mid-1990s, the population dropped. This phenomenon, which also affected other European cities, was caused in part by the growth of satellite suburbs at the expense of the downtown region within the city proper. This also occurred during a period of slowed growth in the European economy. The demographic boom accelerated in the late 1990s and early first decade of the 21st century due to

immigration Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, a ...

in parallel with a surge in Spanish economic growth. According to census data, the population of the city grew by 271,856 between 2001 and 2005. The Community of Madrid is the EU region with the highest average life expectancy at birth. The average life expectancy was 82.2 years for males and 87.8 for females in 2016.

Immigration

As the capital city of Spain, the city has attracted many immigrants from around the world, with most of the immigrants coming from

Latin America Latin America or * french: Amérique Latine, link=no * ht, Amerik Latin, link=no * pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...

n countries. In 2020, around 76% of the registered population was Spain-born, while, regarding the foreign-born population (24%), the bulk of it relates to

the Americas The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World. Along with th ...

(around 16% of the total population), and a lesser fraction of the population is born in other

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

an,

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...

n and

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

n countries. As of 2019, the highest rising national group of immigrants was

Venezuelans Venezuelans ( Spanish: ''venezolanos'') are the citizens identified with the country of Venezuela. This connection may be through citizenship, descent or cultural. For most Venezuelans, many or all of these connections exist and are the source of ...

Religion

Most people in Madrid are Roman Catholic Christians. It is the seat of the

Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Madrid The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Madrid is one of Spain's fourteen metropolitan archbishoprics. Since 28 August 2014 the archbishop of Madrid has been Carlos Osoro Sierra. Although Madrid has been the seat of the Spanish Crown since 1561, the d ...

. In a 2011 survey conducted by InfoCatólica, 63.3% of Madrid residents of all ages identified themselves as

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

. According to a 2019

Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas The Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas ("Centre for Sociological Research") or CIS is a Spanish public research institute. It was founded in 1963 as the Instituto de la Opinión Pública, and in 1977, after the Spanish general election in ...

(CIS) survey with a sample size of 469 respondents, 20.7% of respondents in Madrid identify themselves as practising

s, 45.8% as non-practising Catholics, 3.8% as believers of another religion, 11.1% as

agnostics Agnosticism is the view or belief that the existence of God, of the divine or the supernatural is unknown or unknowable. (page 56 in 1967 edition) Another definition provided is the view that "human reason is incapable of providing sufficient ...

, 3.6% as indifferent towards religion, and 12.8% as

atheists Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no d ...

. The remaining 2.1% did not state their religious beliefs.

Metropolitan region

According to Eurostat, the "metropolitan region" of Madrid has a population of slightly more than 6,271 million people covering an area of . It is the largest metropolitan area in Spain and the third largest in the European Union.United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affair
World Urbanization Prospects (2007 revision)
(United Nations, 2008), Table A.12. Data for 2007.

References

{{reflist Geography of Madrid History of Madrid