Toulouse could soon become the third metropolis in France, while Lyon is gaining fewer inhabitants than the pink city.
The Occitanie region experienced the strongest demographic growth in mainland France between 2016 and 2022, driven by the attractiveness of Montpellier and Toulouse, which should soon rise to the rank of 3rd French city, according to the latest data revealed by INSEE .
Toulouse (511,684 inhabitants as of January 1, 2022) should thus take 3rd place from Lyon, which has only 9,090 additional inhabitants, after having gained around 5,000 more inhabitants over this period than the capital of Gaul each year. The pink city would then be placed behind Paris and Marseille.
Occitania in demographic boom
With a little more than six million inhabitants (6,080,731 in 2022), Occitanie, the fourth French region in terms of population, is hot on the heels of Nouvelle-Aquitaine (6,113,384 inhabitants) and could soon overtake it, driven by a higher annual growth rate over the period 2016-2022 (0.77% compared to 0.49%).
However, it remains far behind Île-de-France (nearly 12.4 million inhabitants) and Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes (nearly 8.2 million).
Occitan demographic growth is notably due to the attractiveness of Toulouse (+1.2% per year) and Montpellier (+1.5%), respectively 4th and 7th largest cities in France, and whose growth during this period far exceeds that of the other metropolises in the top 10.
Net migration
The demographic dynamics of Occitania is almost entirely due to its migratory balance, notes INSEE, the natural balance (the difference between births and deaths) of the region being close to zero.
The annual census method is usually “based on five-year collection cycles”, explains INSEE, but the Covid-19 pandemic led to the survey planned for 2021 being postponed by one year, which is why the Data revealed on Friday covers six years from 2016 to 2022.
The figures concerning the population on January 1, 2023 will be known at the end of 2025, and so on.
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