The Center of France is often synonymous in the imagination with the absence of population, linked to the notion of a “diagonal void”. And this reputation is not stolen. Because although 2.6 million people live in Centre-Val de Loire, we are one of the least populated regions of mainland France.
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With 2.58 million inhabitants in 1is January 2022, the Centre-Val de Loire region represents 3.9% of the population of mainland France. One of the least populated regions therefore, with despite everything a population which remains stable between 2016 and 2022, according to figures published by INSEE in December 2024. Over this same period, there are still municipalities which draw their 679 to be precise, are gaining inhabitants, or more than a third of the 1,756 municipalities in the region.
The only two municipalities which benefit from a population increase dynamic are our two metropolises. Orléans sees its population increase by 0.6%, while Tours by 0.3% between 2016 and 2022. It is therefore only in these two departments that the population is increasing.
The region thus gains an average of 620 new inhabitants each year. This INSEE study reveals that the inhabitants of the Center are mainly concentrated in the eight cities of the region. More than one in two inhabitants lives in an urban municipality. While in these cities the population increases by 0.2%, it decreases in rural communities by 0.2%.
Between 2016 and 2022, the number of inhabitants of Eure-et-Loir is stable. But in Loir-et-Cher, it is decreasing. This department loses 640 inhabitants per year. Only Blois stands out with a population increasing by 0.5%.
But it is in Berry that there are more significant population declines. In the south of the region, the populations of Cher and Indre are falling at a more sustained rate: respectively -0.4% and -0.5% per year between 2016 and 2022.
It is in the Cher that the decline in population has been most pronounced. The department loses 920 inhabitants per year on average between 2011 and 2016 and 1,270 inhabitants per year on average between 2016 and 2022! If Indre also loses inhabitants, the phenomenon is reversed, and goes from 1,330 inhabitants to 1,120 inhabitants lost per year on average.
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