Population. Toulouse now has 511,684 inhabitants and will become the 3rd city in France “very quickly”

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511 684. This is now the number of inhabitants Toulouse ! After officially crossing the milestone of 500,000 souls last year, the Pink City continues its insolent demographic growth, according to the latest census figures, which have just been published this Thursday, December 19, 2024 – and which confirm the legal population as of January 1, 2022.

Toulouse will be the 3rd city in France “very quickly”

With an average increase of 1,23 %of its population between 2016 and 2022, the municipality of Toulouse remains the 2nd most attractive in France. The Pink City should logically soon be crowned with the title of 3rd city in France. And this “very quickly”, advances Caroline Jamet
director of INSEE Occitanie.

Over the last six years, Toulouse has gained on average 6,000 inhabitants per year and Lyon around 800. If the demographic trends observed continue, Toulouse will very quickly overtake Lyon and become the 3rd city in France.

In fact, there is undoubtedly already more inhabitants in Toulouse than in Lyon the INSEE figures being published almost three years later…

Jean-Luc Moudenc, candidate for the 3rd city of France in 2026?

When will the curves officially cross between the capital of Gaul and the Pink City? That’s the whole question. The gap between the two cities melts like snow in the sun, and even accelerated This year.

From now on, Toulouse is very precisely 9 090 habitantsbehind Lyon… However, at the end of 2023, 18,172 inhabitants still separated the two cities. In one year, the gap has been reduced by 9,082 inhabitants! While in Toulouse, we went from 504,078 to 511,684 souls, Lyon saw its population decline for the first time since the 1970s (from 522,250 to 520,774).

If it remains perilous for the regional director of INSEE to “compare two successive years in large cities”, it is not mathematically impossible for Toulouse to become the 3rd city in France from the end of 2025 .

Candidate for his re-election to the Capitol, will Jean-Luc Moudenc present himself before the voters as mayor of the 3rd city of Francein the 2026 Municipal Elections? This could be up to a few residents.

Toulouse and Montpellier, drivers of demographic growth

Between 2016 and 2022, while the population declines in Paris and increases slightly in Marseille and Lyon, it increases sharply in the two main metropolises of Occitanie: the progression is constant in Toulouse (+ 1.2% per year, i.e. as between 2011 and 2016), but it is even stronger at Montpellier 7th city in France, where it is accelerating (+ 1.5% per year, compared to + 1.3% before).

THE natural sales (births minus deaths) and migratory (arrivals minus departures) are both largely positive in Toulouse as in Montpellier. In short, the two metropolises act as “engines of growth” for all of Occitania, says INSEE.

The Toulouse metropolitan area, the most attractive in France

And if Toulouse is attractive, it also benefits its surroundings… Toulouse Metropolisand its 37 municipalities now have 832 348 habitants. Growth is accelerating there (+1.5% per year between 2016 and 2022, compared to +1.3% over the previous period).

On the scale of urban areas economic areas more relevant than intermunicipalities, the population is growing “very quickly”, underlines INSEE. The urban unit of Toulouse, 4th French conurbation, displays 1 081 726 habitants. “It gains 15,000 inhabitants per year! » observes Caroline Jamet. Its increase of 1.4% per year is the strongest among all French cities with more than 500,000 inhabitants, ahead of Bordeaux (+ 1.3%) and Nantes (+ 1.2%).

If we consider the attraction area cities, Toulouse has 1 513 396 habitants (+1.3% per year). This is a larger basin which goes beyond the borders of the department, into Tarn, Tarn-et-Garonne, Ariège and Gers, “where at least 15% of workers go to work on the employment centers” of the Pink City. In short, it is not a surprise: “The dynamism of many departments in the region is driven by Toulouse and its surrounding municipalities,” raises the regional director of INSEE.

Haute-Garonne, French champion of growth

With 1 456 261 habitants, the Haute-Garonne also gets away with it. Excluding Mayotte, it is the department of France where the population is growing the fastest: + 1.3% per year between 2016 and 2022, ahead of Hérault (+ 1.2%). Also note that it is the only one of the 13 departments of Occitanie where the natural balance is positive (with more births than deaths).

At the regional level, Occitanie has 6 080 731 habitants(+ 0.8% per year) and “will overtake New Aquitaine within a few years, to become the 3rd region of France by population”.

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