This geopackage (gpkg) file, which is an essential data repository, houses comprehensive information pertaining to Ireland's official counties as of 2021, encompassing critical data such as population statistics, surface area measurements, official region names, associated codes, and intricate geographical geometries that collectively provide a detailed and up-to-date snapshot of Ireland's regional landscape.

The island of Ireland is split into 32 different counties, and from 1800 until 1921 the whole island was a part of the United Kingdome of Great Britain and Ireland (although Britain had been a controlling presence on the island for considerably longer than this). In 1921 the island was split into two separate states, where the six counties with the highest population of Protestants formed part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the other 26 counties became the Independent Republic of Ireland. From 1821 until 1841, the population of these 26 counties was growing steadily, until the Great Famine from 1845 to 1849 swept across the island, particularly devastating the west and south.

The famine was caused by a Europe-wide potato blight that contributed to mass starvation and death throughout the continent, although it's impact on Ireland was much harsher than anywhere else. The potato blight affected Ireland so severely as the majority of potatoes in Ireland were of a single variety which allowed the disease to spread much faster than in other countries. People in the west and south of Ireland were particularly dependent on potatoes, and these areas were affected more heavily than the north and west, where flax and cereals were the staple. As the potato blight spread, the population became increasingly reliant on dairy and grain products, however a lot of these resources were relocated by the British military to combat food shortages in Britain. Due to disproportional dependency on potatoes, and mismanagement by the British government, over one million people died and a further one million emigrated. The Great Famine lasted from just 1845 to 1849, but it's legacy caused almost a century of population decline, and to this day, the population of Ireland has never exceeded it's pre-famine levels.

The population decline continued well into the twentieth century, during which time the Republic of Ireland achieved independence from the British Empire. After centuries of fighting and rebellion against British rule, Irish nationalists finally gained some independence from Britain in 1921, establishing an Irish Republic in the 26 counties. There was a lot of conflict in Ireland in the early 1900s, through the War of Independence and Irish Civil War, however the population of the Republic began growing again from the 1960s onwards as the quality of life improved and the emigration rate declined. The population was at it's lowest from 1926 to 1971, where it remained at just under three million, but in the following fifty years the population has grown by over two million people.

National and subnational mid-year population estimates for the UK and its constituent countries by administrative area, age and sex (including components of population change, median age and population density).

Usually resident population by ethnic or cultural background by Local Authorities. (Census 2022 Theme 2 Table 2 )Census 2022 table 2.2 is the population usually resident in Ireland by ethnic or cultural background. Details include population by ethnicity or cultural background. Census 2022 theme 2 is Migration, Ethnicity, Religion and Foreign Languages. The country is divided into 31 administrative counties/cities. Outside Dublin, there are 23 administrative counties and four cities: Cork, Limerick, Waterford and Galway. There are four local authority areas in Dublin: Dublin City and the three administrative counties of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, Fingal and South Dublin. The Local Government Reform Act 2014 Section 9 provided for the amalgamation of the city and county councils in Limerick, Waterford, and North Tipperary and South Tipperary County Councils.Coordinate reference system: Irish Transverse Mercator (EPSG 2157). These boundaries are based on 20m generalised boundaries sourced from Tailte Éireann Open Data Portal. This dataset is provided by Tailte Éireann, Administrative Counties 2019

In 2024, over nine million people lived in Greater London, making it the most populated ceremonial county in England. The West Midlands Metropolitan County, which contains the large city of Birmingham, was the second-largest county at just over 3.03 million, closely followed by Greater Manchester at three million, and then West Yorkshire with a population of 2.4 million. Kent, Essex, and Hampshire were the three next-largest counties in terms of population, each with just over 1.9 million people. A patchwork of regions England is just one of the four countries that compose the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, with England, Scotland and Wales making up Great Britain. England is therefore not to be confused with Great Britain or the United Kingdom as a whole. Within England, the next subdivisions are the nine regions of England, containing various smaller units such as unitary authorities, metropolitan counties and non-metropolitan districts. The counties in this statistic, however, are based on the ceremonial counties of England as defined by the Lieutenancies Act of 1997. Regions of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland Like England, the other countries of the United Kingdom have their own regional subdivisions, although with some different terminology. Scotland’s subdivisions are council areas, while Wales has unitary authorities, and Northern Ireland has local government districts. As of 2024, the most-populated Scottish council area was Glasgow City, with over 650,000 inhabitants. In Wales, Cardiff had the largest population among its unitary authorities, and in Northern Ireland, Belfast was the local government area with the most people living there.

WorldPop produces different types of gridded population count datasets, depending on the methods used and end application. Please make sure you have read our Mapping Populations overview page before choosing and downloading a dataset.


Bespoke methods used to produce datasets for specific individual countries are available through the WorldPop Open Population Repository (WOPR) link below. These are 100m resolution gridded population estimates using customized methods ("bottom-up" and/or "top-down") developed for the latest data available from each country. They can also be visualised and explored through the woprVision App.
The remaining datasets in the links below are produced using the "top-down" method, with either the unconstrained or constrained top-down disaggregation method used. Please make sure you read the Top-down estimation modelling overview page to decide on which datasets best meet your needs. Datasets are available to download in Geotiff and ASCII XYZ format at a resolution of 3 and 30 arc-seconds (approximately 100m and 1km at the equator, respectively):

- Unconstrained individual countries 2000-2020 ( 1km resolution ): Consistent 1km resolution population count datasets created using unconstrained top-down methods for all countries of the World for each year 2000-2020.
- Unconstrained individual countries 2000-2020 ( 100m resolution ): Consistent 100m resolution population count datasets created using unconstrained top-down methods for all countries of the World for each year 2000-2020.
- Unconstrained individual countries 2000-2020 UN adjusted ( 100m resolution ): Consistent 100m resolution population count datasets created using unconstrained top-down methods for all countries of the World for each year 2000-2020 and adjusted to match United Nations national population estimates (UN 2019)
-Unconstrained individual countries 2000-2020 UN adjusted ( 1km resolution ): Consistent 1km resolution population count datasets created using unconstrained top-down methods for all countries of the World for each year 2000-2020 and adjusted to match United Nations national population estimates (UN 2019).
-Unconstrained global mosaics 2000-2020 ( 1km resolution ): Mosaiced 1km resolution versions of the "Unconstrained individual countries 2000-2020" datasets.
-Constrained individual countries 2020 ( 100m resolution ): Consistent 100m resolution population count datasets created using constrained top-down methods for all countries of the World for 2020.
-Constrained individual countries 2020 UN adjusted ( 100m resolution ): Consistent 100m resolution population count datasets created using constrained top-down methods for all countries of the World for 2020 and adjusted to match United Nations national population estimates (UN 2019).

Older datasets produced for specific individual countries and continents, using a set of tailored geospatial inputs and differing "top-down" methods and time periods are still available for download here: Individual countries and Whole Continent.

Data for earlier dates is available directly from WorldPop.

WorldPop (www.worldpop.org - School of Geography and Environmental Science, University of Southampton; Department of Geography and Geosciences, University of Louisville; Departement de Geographie, Universite de Namur) and Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), Columbia University (2018). Global High Resolution Population Denominators Project - Funded by The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (OPP1134076). https://dx.doi.org/10.5258/SOTON/WP00645

This feature layer was created using Census 2016 data produced by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) and Administrative Counties national boundary data (generalised to 50m) produced by Tailte Éireann. The layer represents Census 2016 theme 11.2, population aged 5+ by time leaving home to travel to work, school or college. Attributes include a breakdown of population by time leaving for work, school or college (e.g. 6.30 - 7.00, 8.30 - 9.00). Census 2016 theme 11 represents Commuting. The Census is carried out every five years by the CSO to determine an account of every person in Ireland. The results provide information on a range of themes, such as, population, housing and education. The data were sourced from the CSO. In census reports the country is divided into 29 counties/administrative counties and the five Cities which represent the local authority areas. Outside Dublin there are 26 administrative counties (North Tipperary and South Tipperary each ranks as a separate county for administrative purposes) and four Cities, i.e. Cork, Limerick, Waterford and Galway. In Dublin the four local authority areas are identified separately, i.e. Dublin City and the three administrative counties of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, Fingal and South Dublin.

From 1821 until 2011, the male and female populations of the 26 counties of the modern-day Republic of Ireland grew at a relatively similar rate, however some fluctuations did occur. During this time, the entire island of Ireland was a part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, after both islands were united by the Acts of Union in 1800. This graph shows the populations of the 26 counties that would later form the Republic of Ireland in 1921, and does not include the six counties that became known as Northern Ireland.

As we can see, both populations follow a relatively similar trend throughout their respective histories. In the first three entries, women outnumber men by 70,000 to 120,000, although these figures do not include military personnel which would narrow this margin. Both populations fall at a similar rate during and after the famine, however the male population does fall slightly faster, possibly due to an increased rate of emigration among males. Another point where both populations differ is in the early twentieth century, where the female population declines in a relatively smooth curve, although the male populations peak in the census data before and after both world wars. From 1956 onwards both populations follow a very similar trend, and grow at the same rate. The difference in population sizes never exceeds 30,000 people, until the final entry in 2011 where the population of men is 2.27 million and the population of women is 2.31 million.

Population by religion by Local Authorities. (Census 2022 Theme 2 Table 4 )Census 2022 table 2.4 is the total population by religion. Details include population by religion. Census 2022 theme 2 is Migration, Ethnicity, Religion and Foreign Languages. The country is divided into 31 administrative counties/cities. Outside Dublin, there are 23 administrative counties and four cities: Cork, Limerick, Waterford and Galway. There are four local authority areas in Dublin: Dublin City and the three administrative counties of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, Fingal and South Dublin. The Local Government Reform Act 2014 Section 9 provided for the amalgamation of the city and county councils in Limerick, Waterford, and North Tipperary and South Tipperary County Councils.Coordinate reference system: Irish Transverse Mercator (EPSG 2157). These boundaries are based on 20m generalised boundaries sourced from Tailte Éireann Open Data Portal. This dataset is provided by Tailte Éireann, Administrative Counties 2019

Counties Ireland 1911: 34 counties which includes thirty two counties and two urban areas of Belfast and Dublin.This boundary has been generated by aggregation and dissolving boundaries based on common value of County code. Slivers and gaps removed in this processing.The boundaries established for these areas were created from scanned maps and some boundaries were provided from other organizations who previously worked on this. Areas stated on the census tables were used to quality check the areas of each DED. There is no singular and accurate source for mapping representation available - this map is a best effort and indicative of location only.A special thanks to the open source OpenStreetMap (OSM) for providing data for Northern Ireland, and also to Mike Murphy at UCC who provided a map of Ireland at DED level that we could use to reference boundaries.Taillte Éireann provided 1911 boundary maps to the CSO with the following disclaimer: "This cartographic data is a digital representation of the 1911 ED and Poor Law Union datasets. It is for display purposes only and legal boundaries past or present cannot and should not be inferred from this map."OpenStreetMap shapefiles were provided in accordance with their copyright requirements.Scanned copies of Census 1911 Original Reports : Area, houses and population are available here Implements CSO classificationsC04131V04897 - Census 1911 County Classification number

Historical dataset showing total population for Ireland by year from 1950 to 2025.

This horizontal bar chart displays population (people) by countries yearly using the aggregation sum in Ireland. The data is about countries per year.

Population by County, Year, Statistic and Social Class

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Irish Travellers per 1000 of Total Population by Province County or City, CensusYear and Statistic

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This dataset is about countries per year in Ireland. It has 64 rows. It features 3 columns: country, and urban population.

In 2025, the population of the Republic of Ireland was approximately 5.46 million, with approximately 1.57 million people living in County Dublin, the region with the highest population.

This feature layer was created using Census 2016 data produced by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) and Administrative Counties national boundary data (generalised to 50m) produced by Tailte Éireann. The layer represents Census 2016 theme 12.3, population by general health. Attributes include a breakdown of population by health status and sex (e.g. very good - males, fair - females, very bad - total). Census 2016 theme 12 represents Disability, Carers and General Health. The Census is carried out every five years by the CSO to determine an account of every person in Ireland. The results provide information on a range of themes, such as, population, housing and education. The data were sourced from the CSO.In census reports the country is divided into 29 counties/administrative counties and the five Cities which represent the local authority areas. Outside Dublin there are 26 administrative counties (North Tipperary and South Tipperary each ranks as a separate county for administrative purposes) and four Cities, i.e. Cork, Limerick, Waterford and Galway. In Dublin the four local authority areas are identified separately, i.e. Dublin City and the three administrative counties of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, Fingal and South Dublin.

Percentage Change in Population by Province County or City, Statistic and CensusYear

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Historical dataset showing Ireland population density by year from 1961 to 2022.

Population by sex and marital status by Local Authorities. (Census 2022 Theme 1 Table 2 )Census 2022 table 1.2 is the total population of Ireland by sex and marital status. Details include population by sex and marital status. Census 2022 theme 1 is population by Sex, Age and Marital status. The country is divided into 31 administrative counties/cities. Outside Dublin, there are 23 administrative counties and four cities: Cork, Limerick, Waterford and Galway. There are four local authority areas in Dublin: Dublin City and the three administrative counties of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, Fingal and South Dublin. The Local Government Reform Act 2014 Section 9 provided for the amalgamation of the city and county councils in Limerick, Waterford, and North Tipperary and South Tipperary County Councils.Coordinate reference system: Irish Transverse Mercator (EPSG 2157). These boundaries are based on 20m generalised boundaries sourced from Tailte Éireann Open Data Portal. This dataset is provided by Tailte Éireann, Administrative Counties 2019