In mid-2017, Croatia had an estimated population of 4,124,531, according to an estimate released by the state statistics bureau released on Friday. The figure indicates that the steady decline in population figures continued in 2017, with the number of Croatians dropping by 49,818 or 1.2 percent from 2016.

All Croatian counties recorded drops in population, except in the City of Zagreb and in the western Istria County, which observed slight increases of 0.05 percent and 0.06 percent respectively. The sharpest drops were registered in the eastern Vukovar-Srijem County (by 3.97 percent) and in Pozega-Slavonia County (3.25 percent).

The figure includes 1,990,341 men, and 2,134,190 women, with the proportion of women in the total population 51.7 percent, while men accounted for 48.3 percent. The lowest share of women was recorded in the mountainous Lika-Senj County (50.2 percent) and the highest in the City of Zagreb (53.2 percent).

Population ageing also continued last year, with the average age reaching 43.1 years (41.3 years for men, and 44.8 years for women). This puts Croatia among the oldest nations in Europe on average.

The proportion of young people under 19 years of age in the total population was 19.8 percent. The lowest proportion was recorded in Primorje-Gorski Kotar County (16.6 percent) and the highest in Medjimurje County (22.1 percent).

The proportion of the fertile contingent within the female population also continued to drop, reaching 41.9 percent last year.

The largest proportion of population aged 65 and over was recorded in Lika-Senj County (24.7 percent) and the smallest in Medjimurje County (17.6 percent).

Overall, some 52 percent of the total population lives in only 5 out of Croatia’s 21 counties, most of them in the City of Zagreb (802,762 or 19.5 percent of the total) and Split-Dalmatia County (449,610 or 10.9 percent).

The least populated were Pozega-Slavonia County (69,583 inhabitants or 1.7 percent) and Lika-Senj County (45,943 inhabitants or 1.1 percent).

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