During the eighteenth century, it is estimated that France's population grew by roughly fifty percent, from 19.7 million in 1700, to 29 million by 1800. In France itself, the 1700s are remembered for the end of King Louis XIV's reign in 1715, the Age of Enlightenment, and the French Revolution. During this century, the scientific and ideological advances made in France and across Europe challenged the leadership structures of the time, and questioned the relationship between monarchial, religious and political institutions and their subjects. France was arguably the most powerful nation in the world in these early years, with the second largest population in Europe (after Russia); however, this century was defined by a number of costly, large-scale conflicts across Europe and in the new North American theater, which saw the loss of most overseas territories (particularly in North America) and almost bankrupted the French crown. A combination of regressive taxation, food shortages and enlightenment ideologies ultimately culminated in the French Revolution in 1789, which brought an end to the Ancien Régime, and set in motion a period of self-actualization.

War and peace

After a volatile and tumultuous decade, in which tens of thousands were executed by the state (most infamously: guillotined), relative stability was restored within France as Napoleon Bonaparte seized power in 1799, and the policies of the revolution became enforced. Beyond France's borders, the country was involved in a series of large scale wars for two almost decades, and the First French Empire eventually covered half of Europe by 1812. In 1815, Napoleon was defeated outright, the empire was dissolved, and the monarchy was restored to France; nonetheless, a large number of revolutionary and Napoleonic reforms remained in effect afterwards, and the ideas had a long-term impact across the globe. France experienced a century of comparative peace in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars; there were some notable uprisings and conflicts, and the monarchy was abolished yet again, but nothing on the scale of what had preceded or what was to follow. A new overseas colonial empire was also established in the late 1800s, particularly across Africa and Southeast Asia. Through most of the eighteenth and nineteenth century, France had the second largest population in Europe (after Russia), however political instability and the economic prioritization of Paris meant that the entire country did not urbanize or industrialize at the same rate as the other European powers. Because of this, Germany and Britain entered the twentieth century with larger populations, and other regions, such as Austria or Belgium, had overtaken France in terms of industrialization; the German annexation of Alsace-Lorraine in the Franco-Prussian War was also a major contributor to this.

World Wars and contemporary France

Coming into the 1900s, France had a population of approximately forty million people (officially 38 million* due to to territorial changes), and there was relatively little growth in the first half of the century. France was comparatively unprepared for a large scale war, however it became one of the most active theaters of the First World War when Germany invaded via Belgium in 1914, with the ability to mobilize over eight million men. By the war's end in 1918, France had lost almost 1.4 million in the conflict, and approximately 300,000 in the Spanish Flu pandemic that followed. Germany invaded France again during the Second World War, and occupied the country from 1940, until the Allied counter-invasion liberated the country during the summer of 1944. France lost around 600,000 people in the course of the war, over half of which were civilians. Following the war's end, the country experienced a baby boom, and the population grew by approximately twenty million people in the next fifty years (compared to just one million in the previous fifty years). Since the 1950s, France's economy quickly grew to be one of the strongest in the world, despite losing the vast majority of its overseas colonial empire by the 1970s. A wave of migration, especially from these former colonies, has greatly contributed to the growth and diversity of France's population today, which stands at over 65 million people in 2020.

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

The total population in France was estimated at 68.4 million people in 2024, according to the latest census figures and projections from Trading Economics. This dataset provides the latest reported value for - France Population - plus previous releases, historical high and low, short-term forecast and long-term prediction, economic calendar, survey consensus and news.

Historical dataset showing France population growth rate by year from 1961 to 2023.

Complete population data for France showing how many people live in France from 1960 to 2024

Yearly (annual) dataset of the France Population, including historical data, latest releases, and long-term trends from 1960-12-31 to 2024-12-31. Available for free download in CSV format.

In 1801 the population of France was estimated to be just under 20 million people, the number of women was 14 million, whereas the number of men was 13.3 million. The gap then widens in 1821 to 0.9 million, which is most likely a result of the Napoleonic Wars, and it then narrows during the rest of the century, shrinking to just 0.04 million in 1866.

Throughout the time shown in the graph the numbers of men and women seem to follow similar trends, however the period between 1911 and 1946 shows how drastically the numbers of men were affected by both World Wars. Between 1911 and 1921 the number of men dropped by 0.8 million, whereas the number of women grew by 0.4 million. The male population does grow again during the interwar years, however both populations drop between 1931 and 1946 due to the Second World War, with the number of males decreasing by just under one million and the number of females by 0.4 million. This graph does not show how many died in France during the wars, as the numbers would also be influenced by the birth and natural death rate, but it does give an insight into the long term affects it had on the population.

From 1946 onwards the population of France does grow steadily, and at a much faster rate than it did in the 19th century. The population grows from just under 40 million in 1946, to 65.7 million in 2020, with 31.2 and 33.2 million men and women respectively. This increase in growth comes as a result of an increased fertility rate as well as an increased rate of migration into the country. While the difference in the number of men and women did decrease after the war, reaching its lowest point of 1.1 million in 1975, the gap has widened again to over two million in 2020.

Actual value and historical data chart for France Population Growth Annual Percent

In 1938, the year before the outbreak of the Second world War, the countries with the largest populations were China, the Soviet Union, and the United States, although the United Kingdom had the largest overall population when it's colonies, dominions, and metropole are combined. Alongside France, these were the five Allied "Great Powers" that emerged victorious from the Second World War. The Axis Powers in the war were led by Germany and Japan in their respective theaters, and their smaller populations were decisive factors in their defeat. Manpower as a resource In the context of the Second World War, a country or territory's population played a vital role in its ability to wage war on such a large scale. Not only were armies able to call upon their people to fight in the war and replenish their forces, but war economies were also dependent on their workforce being able to meet the agricultural, manufacturing, and logistical demands of the war. For the Axis powers, invasions and the annexation of territories were often motivated by the fact that it granted access to valuable resources that would further their own war effort - millions of people living in occupied territories were then forced to gather these resources, or forcibly transported to work in manufacturing in other Axis territories. Similarly, colonial powers were able to use resources taken from their territories to supply their armies, however this often had devastating consequences for the regions from which food was redirected, contributing to numerous food shortages and famines across Africa, Asia, and Europe. Men from annexed or colonized territories were also used in the armies of the war's Great Powers, and in the Axis armies especially. This meant that soldiers often fought alongside their former-enemies. Aftermath The Second World War was the costliest in human history, resulting in the deaths of between 70 and 85 million people. Due to the turmoil and destruction of the war, accurate records for death tolls generally do not exist, therefore pre-war populations (in combination with other statistics), are used to estimate death tolls. The Soviet Union is believed to have lost the largest amount of people during the war, suffering approximately 24 million fatalities by 1945, followed by China at around 20 million people. The Soviet death toll is equal to approximately 14 percent of its pre-war population - the countries with the highest relative death tolls in the war are found in Eastern Europe, due to the intensity of the conflict and the systematic genocide committed in the region during the war.

Actual value and historical data chart for France Population Total

Historical dataset of population level and growth rate for the Paris, France metro area from 1950 to 2025.

This line chart displays urban population (people) by date using the aggregation sum in France. The data is about countries per year.

This line chart displays female population (people) by date using the aggregation sum in France. The data is about countries per year.

Historical dataset showing France rural population by year from 1960 to 2023.

France - Population as a % of EU population was 15.20% in December of 2024, according to the EUROSTAT. Trading Economics provides the current actual value, an historical data chart and related indicators for France - Population as a % of EU population - last updated from the EUROSTAT on December of 2025. Historically, France - Population as a % of EU population reached a record high of 15.30% in December of 2023 and a record low of 14.80% in December of 2012.

France - Proportion of population aged 50-64 years was 19.30% in December of 2024, according to the EUROSTAT. Trading Economics provides the current actual value, an historical data chart and related indicators for France - Proportion of population aged 50-64 years - last updated from the EUROSTAT on November of 2025. Historically, France - Proportion of population aged 50-64 years reached a record high of 19.40% in December of 2012 and a record low of 19.10% in December of 2010.

View yearly updates and historical trends for France Population. Source: World Bank. Track economic data with YCharts analytics.

Between 1500 and 1800, London grew to be the largest city in Western Europe, with its population growing almost 22 times larger in this period. London would eventually overtake Constantinople as Europe's largest in the 1700s, before becoming the largest city in the world (ahead of Beijing) in the early-1800s.

The most populous cities in this period were the capitals of European empires, with Paris, Amsterdam, and Vienna growing to become the largest cities, alongside the likes of Lisbon and Madrid in Iberia, and Naples or Venice in Italy. Many of northwestern Europe's largest cities in 1500 would eventually be overtaken by others not shown here, such as the port cities of Hamburg, Marseilles or Rotterdam, or more industrial cities such as Berlin, Birmingham, and Munich.

Prepared by ICPSR under a project to automate major portions of the Statistique Generale de la France, this is a collection of demographic, social, education, economic, population, and vital statistics data for France, 1833-1925. This conversion project is a continuation of one conducted in 1972, for which a similar data collection was created, SOCIAL, DEMOGRAPHIC, AND EDUCATIONAL DATA FOR FRANCE, 1801-1897 (ICPSR 0048). The project to collect and prepare these data was sponsored by two French and two American groups: ICPSR and the Center for Western European Studies at the University of Michigan, and the Fourth and Sixth Sections of the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes and Conseil National de la Recherches Scientifique in France. Both collections include data recorded at the departement, arrondissement, chef-lieu, and ville level. In this collection, materials from the vital statistics series were prepared for selected years rather than for each year in the period from 1900-1925. The years that were chosen clustered around the quinquennial censuses and also included (because of the violent demographic dislocations produced by World War I) each year in the 1914-1919 period. In addition, some vital statistics for the nineteenth century (1836-1850, 1880, and 1892) obtained from fugitive published volumes that could not be located during the course of the 1972 project were prepared. The 136 datasets in this collection contain: (1) French population, economic, and social data obtained from the quenquennial censuses of 1901, 1906, 1911, and 1921, that detail the composition of the population by categories of age, sex, nativity, marital status, religion, place of residence, and occupation, (2) industrial census data for the years 1861-1896, (3) data on primary education in France for 1833, 1901, and 1906, as well as data on secondary and higher education in France for the years 1836-1850, 1880, and 1892, and (4) data from a separate series of annual vital statistics (Mouvement de la Population) that cover the years 1836-1850, 1892, and 1900-1925, citing births, deaths, and marriages in the nation.

France FR: Population: Ages 15-64: % of Total Population data was reported at 61.470 % in 2023. This records a decrease from the previous number of 61.590 % for 2022. France FR: Population: Ages 15-64: % of Total Population data is updated yearly, averaging 65.005 % from Dec 1990 (Median) to 2023, with 34 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 65.880 % in 1990 and a record low of 61.470 % in 2023. France FR: Population: Ages 15-64: % of Total Population data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. The data is categorized under Global Database’s France – Table FR.OECD.GGI: Social: Demography: OECD Member: Annual.