Murcia Population

Costa Blanca Details

 

Murcia is the center of a metropolitan area that, although not defined administratively, is widely recognized in studies on the subject. The total population size depends on each study area, but there is a broad consensus within the area that at least includes the municipalities of Alcantarilla, Alguazas, Beniel, Molina de Segura, Santomera, Las Torres de Cotillas, and there is a growing trend to include others such as Ceuti, Lorqui, and Librilla.

Depending on the exact population of this area, there would be around 600,000 inhabitants. The project AUDES5 defines an urban area that includes the metropolitan areas of Murcia and Orihuela with 748,358 inhabitants and is the seventh most populated in Spain.

It was in the late 18th century when the first population census was conducted, ordered by the Count of Floridablanca. Murcia then consisted of 63,665 inhabitants (1787).

Throughout the 20th century Murcia maintained a positive constant, except in the ’60s, when there was a slight decrease. The municipality covers an area of 881.86 kmē, and the population is divided between the core and the many parishes.

In 2006 180,113 people resided in the urban core and 236,883 people within its 45 parishes, while some of them are now overlapping with the core, forming a conurbation. Los Dolores, San Benito Santiago, Zaraiche, and Zarandona are locations that still rank parishes today (and, therefore, are not included in the computation of population of the town) even though they really are authentic neighborhoods absorbed by the growth of the city.

The municipality of Murcia has 430,571 inhabitants (INE 2008), being the seventh Spanish municipality by population. However, due to the large size of the municipality, its population density (488 inhabitants/kmē) is far away from being the top Spanish municipality.

Of the total municipal population, only 179,682 people live in the capital city, sharing the remainder (250,889 people) among the many parishes. Most of these districts have a number of towns that total well above the 100 villages throughout the county.

In the Gazetteer of INE are 157 villages, but that total included 28 who, in reality, are neighborhoods of the capital and one that appears without population, leaving the total to 128 villages inhabited. This, coupled with the many scattered inhabitants, indicates a highly dispersed population.

 

 

According to official data of population of the INE, in 2005 the 10.16% of the population of the municipality was of foreign nationality.

Note: In 1978 the town was separated from Santomera, whose population is counted in the censuses of 1970 and earlier but not in the following years.