Resident population · Romania

Population in Romania, county by county: three censuses

Choose a county on the map or in the list. Compare resident population across three censuses, then see how the picture changes when you look at percentages, not only totals.

All population projects ↓

Romania · resident total21,680,974 → 19,053,815-12.1% · 2002–2021 · 2,627,159 fewer residents

INS · censuses 2002 / 2011 / 2021

Where did the total rise or fall?

Each county is coloured by percentage change from 2002 to 2021. Select a county or use the list below.

< −20%−20% to below −10%−10% to below 0%0% to below 10%≥ 10%

Choose a county or Bucharest

Selected unit

Alba

-14.8%change 2002–2021

2002: 382,747
2011: 342,376
2021: 325,941
Net change: -56,806

Resident population counts people usually living in the unit. Totals alone do not show why they changed.

The comparison covers 41 counties and Bucharest, using today’s administrative units. The map colours percentage change from 2002 to 2021; bars compare totals from the three censuses. The source does not flag boundary changes for each unit separately. Resident population in the 2002, 2011 and 2021 censuses. County values come from public citypopulation.de tables citing INS censuses; Bucharest is one total, with no separate sectors. The change does not explain why population shifted. Census tables used.

01 / Population in context

Three censuses, one question

The comparison uses resident population in the 2002, 2011 and 2021 censuses. Select an administrative unit to see all three totals. Bucharest is one of the 42 rows; its sectors are not added separately here.

How many people are left in your commune ↗The languages of Timișoara, 1869–2021: what its people told the census ↗The 1918 border in today's figures, commune by commune ↗

02 / Population in context

A changed total does not tell us who moved

The difference between two censuses is a net change in resident population. It does not separate births, deaths or moves between places and countries. For migration, see projects that trace departures, arrivals and destinations through dedicated sources.

Romania is moving, one commune at a time ↗29 questions at America's gate: Romanian emigration to America (1880–1930) ↗Britain and Romania: nearly 2,000 years of links, from Hadrian’s Wall to the 2021 census ↗

03 / Population in context

Births and ages need different denominators

A count of births in one year is not the same as a birth rate; the age distribution of mothers alone does not describe a family’s decision. Open the birth series, birthday records and regional projections to see the period and population behind each measure.

How Romanians are born ↗How rare is your birthday? ↗Three hundred and five regions to 2100 ↗

04 / Population in context

People, homes and administrative boundaries

This map compares counties and the capital, not every town or village. Other projects work at locality level, count unoccupied homes or trace new construction. An extra building does not automatically mean an extra resident.

The Empty House — 1 in 4 Dwellings Stands Empty ↗Romania Keeps Building. But For Whom? ↗Emptying of people, not of homes ↗România ta: 3,181 Romanian communes and towns in nine numbers (the sea, earthquakes, mountains in view, hospital, first mention) ↗

From county to locality

Find a population, year or story

The collection brings together censuses, migration, births, ages, settlements and housing. Each project states what it counts and for which period.

How many people are left in your commune ↗Romania is moving, one commune at a time ↗How Romanians are born ↗The Empty House — 1 in 4 Dwellings Stands Empty ↗Half the people, in 204 places ↗România ta: 3,181 Romanian communes and towns in nine numbers (the sea, earthquakes, mountains in view, hospital, first mention) ↗

Population · 27 projects

The complete collection

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27 projects

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Censuses and registers
The languages of Timișoara, 1869–2021: what its people told the census
Timișoara, in western Romania, as a street at night, one lit window for every hundred residents. Ask the city its mother tongue, nationality and faith and the same windows answer differently; in 1910 its 6,728 Jews appear only when language is set beside religion. Every census from 1869 to 2021. In Romanian and English.
Censuses and registers
The 1918 border in today's figures, commune by commune
The frontier between the Old Kingdom and Austria-Hungary vanished in 1918. A test of 29 indicators across 3,181 communes shows what still steps at the old line, what differs as a slope, and what does not differ at all. In Romanian and English.
Migration and diaspora
Britain and Romania: nearly 2,000 years of links, from Hadrian’s Wall to the 2021 census
Twelve sourced stops on what Britain and Romania left in each other, from a hoard of nails in Scotland and Dacians on Hadrian’s Wall to jets built in Bucharest; at the end you look up how many Romania-born people live in your area of England or Wales.
Censuses and registers
How many people are left in your commune
Search your commune or county and see on 3D terrain how its population fell or rose across the 2002, 2011 and 2021 censuses. Every commune is a column: height is population, colour is change. In Romanian and English.
Population and settlements
How many more times will you see your parents? A calculator of the time you have left, from Romania's life tables
Work out how many visits and days you have left with your mother, father or grandparents, from your ages, how often you meet and Romania's 2024 life table.
Birth, age and family
How many ancestors did you have in the year 1000?
The places in your family tree double every generation. By the year 1000 they need billions of people, in a Europe of about 36 million. Put your grandparents' towns on the map, follow your ancestors generation by generation and compare them with a classmate's. In Romanian and English.
Birth, age and family
How rare is your birthday?
Pick a date and see where it ranks among the 365 of the year, from 6.5 million births recorded in Romania in 1995–2025. The same data show births moving away from weekends, new public holidays, the 13th and 29 February.
Migration and diaspora
29 questions at America's gate: Romanian emigration to America (1880–1930)
148,249 Romanians admitted between 1899 and 1924, the Fiume sailings, the Ellis Island inspection to try yourself, and nine real passengers to search by name.
Homes and households
The Empty House — 1 in 4 Dwellings Stands Empty
The 2021 Census counts 2.53 million unoccupied dwellings — 25.5% of the housing stock. In Mehedinți 36.3% are empty. County map, breakdown and why the rural empty stock does not solve city rents.
Homes and households
Romania Keeps Building. But For Whom?
Romania's national statistics office counts, every year, how many dwellings exist in every locality. Since 1992 the housing stock has grown 29,5%, even as the domiciled population fell 8,3% — and in 65,2% of 2.946 localities, housing grew exactly where people left.
Birth, age and family
Would you still give this name?
Maria ranked No. 1 in every year from 2002 to 2022. Type a first name and a birth year to see whether you belong to a crowd or a memory.
Homes and households
Emptying of people, not of homes
Of 1,979 Romanian localities that had fewer residents in 2020 than in 2000, 1,556 have more dwellings. Look up your own place and see on a satellite image how much ground under buildings was added.
Birth, age and family
How Romanians are born
A thousand Romanian births, rearranged by the mother's age, show how the most common age group shifted from 20–24 to 30–34 between 1990 and 2022. Follow the same dots by year, birth order and county.
Censuses and registers
Romania is moving, one commune at a time
Over 34 years, big cities have stood still or lost population through migration while the communes around them grew by tens per thousand a year. Find your locality and see how Romania has moved.
Censuses and registers
What We Know About Ourselves
A reader asked for a list of deduced truths about Romanians. One hundred survived, in ten chapters of ten. Each carries its deduction underneath, a map links the propositions to their 134 sources, and the result sits at the end.
Censuses and registers
How long you live on your own, before you marry
The years between the parental house and marriage: 12.6 in Sweden, 3.1 in Romania, minus 0.7 in Croatia. Hajnal’s 1965 line stayed put for marriage and rotated sixty degrees for the household.
Birth, age and family
Three hundred and five regions to 2100
Under SSP2, the 15–64 share across Romania's eight regions moves from 63.3–66.7% in 2020 to 46.7–48.9% in 2100. The map shows where regional paths separate.
Population and settlements
91 percent of people live south of Bucharest
91.0% of people in the 2020 grid live south of 44.43° N. The midpoint sits at 25.4° N.
Censuses and registers
Close in the data, far on the map.
Find places in other counties with a similar profile and compare the values that connect them.
Population and settlements
The shortage has a shape | Romania labour map
Romania's labour shortage is a set of matching failures. A source-backed map of skills, care, place, formal work and migration.
Birth, age and family
Your birthday, ranked
Pick a day and month and see where it ranks among the 365 dates of the year in England and Wales, how many babies are born on it, and whose birthday is rarer. Every birth from 1995 to 2025, from the ONS.
Population and settlements
Romania's smallest town by population, area and density, ranked
What is Romania's smallest town? All 319 towns and municipalities ranked by resident population, administrative area and density, from census and boundary data.
Censuses and registers
Half the people, in 204 places
Half the people, in 204 places.
Population and settlements
Avoidable death
Romania: 199.7. EU average: 86.8. The same measure and year, a gap of 112.9 points.
Population and settlements
România ta: 3,181 Romanian communes and towns in nine numbers (the sea, earthquakes, mountains in view, hospital, first mention)
Type a Romanian town or village and see nine computed numbers, each from a different project: the sea, the earthquake design value, mountains in view, the nearest hospital, airport and castle, the first written mention, where the ground lay 100 million years ago, and your antipode.
Population and settlements
How Bucharest spread into Ilfov since 1975: a satellite map of buildings, locality by locality
Ilfov now has more ground under buildings than Bucharest itself: since 1990, buildings have covered 42.1 km² of new ground in Ilfov and 11.1 km² in the city. The 1975–2020 satellite map for every street, neighbourhood and commune, with census population.
Migration and diaspora
Romanian names in England and Wales, 1996–2025
Twelve names from Romania’s top-20 lists appear in no baby-name table for England and Wales from 1996 to 2003. In 2020 they were given to 611 babies. What the official tables can and cannot count, tested on Polish names.

About the collection

This collection brings together relevant projects from the site’s library. Each entry has a title, a description and a link to its available edition. The complete projects carry their sources and evidence limits.

Reviewed 2026-10-16 · Collection as text

Sources

Institutul Național de Statistică · rezultate ale recensământului 2021
Official results of the 2021 census. The series with 2002 and 2011 comes from public citypopulation.de tables citing the INS censuses.
Thomas Brinkhoff · City Population: Romania
County tables of resident population in the 2002, 2011 and 2021 censuses.
geo-spatial.org · limite administrative locale
Administrative polygons are reused under CC BY-SA 4.0 and simplified for display.