Population Changes in Spain: Historical Overview and Current Challenges

Spain’s Population Changes

Spain’s population has changed in the past due to economic activities, use of the land and the history of the inhabitants. It is a country of contrasts where areas are highly populated as the service, industrial and coastal zones, or less populated like mountainous or arable areas.

Before 19th Century

It is difficult to know Spain's exact population before the first census, but we can estimate it thanks to the historical events that affected the society: the Black Death and poor harvests from the 14th century, the emigration waves to America in the 16th century or the smallpox epidemic from 1785.

Since 19th Century

Since the 19th century, the advances brought by the Industrial Revolution caused a continuous population growth except for certain events: the War of Independence (1808–1814), the cholera epidemic, the Carlist Wars, the Spanish-American War (1898), the large-scale emigration to America (1900-1917), flu pandemic (1918–1919) or the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). Between 1960 and 1975 there were two important developments: internal migration from rural to urban areas, and emigration to other Western European countries. Finally, between 1990 and 2010, more million of immigrants came to Spain from Central and South America, Eastern Europe and North Africa. As a result Spain's population is nowadays around 48 million.

The Contrast Between High and Low Density Areas

• Depopulation of rural areas: Rural areas are often abandoned leaving ageing population.
• Pressure on the surrounding area in high-density regions: Cities need space to their population so they create sleep/room-cities.
• Depletion of resources and pollution: End of resources and pollution/damages to the environment.
• Lack of contact with nature: People lost touch with the environment.

Population Definition

Amount of people who inhabit in a particular place in a certain moment. World population: Population is influenced by physical environment and human factors, that means that until the Industrial Revolution the population was heavily affected by factors as wars and epidemics (affected its growth). Since the 19th century that changed, the better life conditions led to an amount of the number of people.

Historical Overview

• Ancient Middle Ages: Wars and epidemics slowed down the population growth.
• Early Modern Age: Population experienced a slight growth stopped by epidemics and wars.
• Modern Age: The Industrial Revolution caused an amount in population until the wars of the 20th century.
• 21st Century: Because of the society mentality changes the population stagnated, except for the inmigration birth rates.

Factors Affecting Population Distribution

• High density areas: Favorable agricultural conditions, large deposits of mineral resources, industrial and technological developments, favorable geographic location, areas with special services in trade and tourism, areas with administrative functions.
• Demographic areas: Advise climate that makes living difficult (deserts), advise vegetation where difficult places to live (forests), mountains reliefs where agriculture is difficult, only success in winter sports, geographical and historical isolation, areas used for agriculture require (machinery, not people).