The Loiret has expanded over the last decade. In eleven years, it gained 27,473 inhabitants. The department has 687,063 inhabitants.
Growth above 10%
And it is the Métropole d’Orléans which serves as the locomotive. Thirteen of its 22 cities experienced growth above 10% (but not Orléans, at 1.89%). The record goes to Marigny-les-Usages (+ 59.20%!).
Of course, the percentages should be taken with a pinch of salt. The smaller the city, the more the percentage will vary. But even in hard figures, the biggest increase is in Olivet (+ 3,437 inhabitants), ahead of Saint-Jean-de-Braye (+ 2,831), Orléans (+ 2,159)… Only Boigny-sur-Bionne and Saint-Jean-de -la-Ruelle recorded a slight decline. Semoy, for its part, displays astonishing stability, with only one resident less in eleven years!
Radiation tens of kilometers away
The wider Orléans region also benefits from this dynamic. And not just the closest towns, like Cercottes, Chaingy or Vennecy. The demographic attractiveness is felt as far as the Orléans forest or on the banks of the Loire. Note that Beaugency, whose population showed a slight decline, returned to positive (+3.05%).
If the majority of municipalities and the old capitals, up to Patay itself, tend to expand, the trend is reversed in the most remote villages of Beauce and Sologne.
The east is emptying
In the east, the discomfiture of Giennois is confirmed year after year. In terms of gross loss of inhabitants, Gien holds the sad record of Loiret (-1,254!). Briare or Sully-sur-Loire also display negative percentages. Feins-en-Gâtinais is a terrible example, going from 47 to 30 inhabitants in ten years.
A lack of attractiveness which is reversed in Dampierre-en-Burly (thanks to the nuclear power plant?) and going west, along the RD2060 towards Orléans.
A very disparate north
Finally, the north remains very contrasted, between the neglect of the countryside of Beauce and Gâtinais, and the influence of the Paris region, whose less well-off populations, moving away from the prices of Paris, arrive in the Loiret. Amilly gains more than 1,500 inhabitants, Montargis progresses, Châlette-sur-Loing retreats, and the border with Yonne is emptying.
Pithiverais is even more disparate: the main town and Puiseaux are holding together, Le Malesherbois is not, and the surrounding villages are just as heterogeneous.
And in the region?
There are 2.582 million of us in Centre-Val de Loire. And the region has more inhabitants in 2022 than in 2011. But not by much. With an increase of 0.97%, we are just reversing the negative trend observed the previous year, a long-term stagnation.
Loiret is the driving force behind this uncertain growth, even more than Indre-et-Loire. We recorded an increase of 4.17%, compared to 3.81% for the Tours department, and 0.59% for Eure-et-Loir. Right in the “diagonal void”, the other three departments are, conversely, pulling regional demographics downward: -0.70% for Loir-et-Cher; -3.91% for Cher; -5.81% for Indre, the least populous, which has only 216,810 inhabitants.
Loiret is therefore not about to lose its status as the most populous department, with 687,063 inhabitants: 70,000 more than Indre-et-Loire.
But don’t shout cocorico too soon. Because on the city side, Orléans still has a lot to do against its competitor from Tours. Which, with approximately 20,000 more inhabitants, also ensures greater growth (+ 3% compared to 1.89%) over the last eleven years. The Johannine city is not about to catch up with its neighbor! Bourges lost more than 2,000 inhabitants, as did Châteauroux, and Chartres more than 1,000, while Blois recorded slight growth (+700 inhabitants).
