In 1800, the region of Germany was not a single, unified nation, but a collection of decentralized, independent states, bound together as part of the Holy Roman Empire. This empire was dissolved, however, in 1806, during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras in Europe, and the German Confederation was established in 1815. Napoleonic reforms led to the abolition of serfdom, extension of voting rights to property-owners, and an overall increase in living standards. The population grew throughout the remainder of the century, as improvements in sanitation and medicine (namely, mandatory vaccination policies) saw child mortality rates fall in later decades. As Germany industrialized and the economy grew, so too did the argument for nationhood; calls for pan-Germanism (the unification of all German-speaking lands) grew more popular among the lower classes in the mid-1800s, especially following the revolutions of 1948-49. In contrast, industrialization and poor harvests also saw high unemployment in rural regions, which led to waves of mass migration, particularly to the U.S.. In 1886, the Austro-Prussian War united northern Germany under a new Confederation, while the remaining German states (excluding Austria and Switzerland) joined following the Franco-Prussian War in 1871; this established the German Empire, under the Prussian leadership of Emperor Wilhelm I and Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. 1871 to 1945 - Unification to the Second World War The first decades of unification saw Germany rise to become one of Europe's strongest and most advanced nations, and challenge other world powers on an international scale, establishing colonies in Africa and the Pacific. These endeavors were cut short, however, when the Austro-Hungarian heir apparent was assassinated in Sarajevo; Germany promised a "blank check" of support for Austria's retaliation, who subsequently declared war on Serbia and set the First World War in motion. Viewed as the strongest of the Central Powers, Germany mobilized over 11 million men throughout the war, and its army fought in all theaters. As the war progressed, both the military and civilian populations grew increasingly weakened due to malnutrition, as Germany's resources became stretched. By the war's end in 1918, Germany suffered over 2 million civilian and military deaths due to conflict, and several hundred thousand more during the accompanying influenza pandemic. Mass displacement and the restructuring of Europe's borders through the Treaty of Versailles saw the population drop by several million more.

Reparations and economic mismanagement also financially crippled Germany and led to bitter indignation among many Germans in the interwar period; something that was exploited by Adolf Hitler on his rise to power. Reckless printing of money caused hyperinflation in 1923, when the currency became so worthless that basic items were priced at trillions of Marks; the introduction of the Rentenmark then stabilized the economy before the Great Depression of 1929 sent it back into dramatic decline. When Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in 1933, the Nazi government disregarded the Treaty of Versailles' restrictions and Germany rose once more to become an emerging superpower. Hitler's desire for territorial expansion into eastern Europe and the creation of an ethnically-homogenous German empire then led to the invasion of Poland in 1939, which is considered the beginning of the Second World War in Europe. Again, almost every aspect of German life contributed to the war effort, and more than 13 million men were mobilized. After six years of war, and over seven million German deaths, the Axis powers were defeated and Germany was divided into four zones administered by France, the Soviet Union, the UK, and the U.S.. Mass displacement, shifting borders, and the relocation of peoples based on ethnicity also greatly affected the population during this time. 1945 to 2020 - Partition and Reunification In the late 1940s, cold war tensions led to two distinct states emerging in Germany; the Soviet-controlled east became the communist German Democratic Republic (DDR), and the three western zones merged to form the democratic Federal Republic of Germany. Additionally, Berlin was split in a similar fashion, although its location deep inside DDR territory created series of problems and opportunities for the those on either side. Life quickly changed depending on which side of the border one lived. Within a decade, rapid economic recovery saw West Germany become western Europe's strongest economy and a key international player. In the east, living standards were much lower, although unemployment was almost non-existent; internationally, East Germany was the strongest economy in the Eastern Bloc (after the USSR), though it eventually fell behind the West by the 1970s. The restriction of movement between the two states also led to labor shortages in t...

The population of Europe was estimated to be 745 million in 2024, an increase of around 4 million when compared with 2012. Over 35 years between 1950 and 1985, the population of Europe grew by approximately 157.8 million. But 35 years after 1985 it was estimated to have only increased by around 38.7 million. Since the 1960s, population growth in Europe has fallen quite significantly and was even negative during the mid-1990s. While population growth has increased slightly since the low of -0.07 percent in 1998, the growth rate for 2020 was just 0.04 percent. Which European country has the biggest population? As of 2024, the population of Russia was estimated to be approximately 144.8 million and was by far Europe's largest country in terms of population, with Turkey being the second-largest at over 87 million. While these two countries both have territory in Europe, however, they are both only partially in Europe, with the majority of their landmasses being in Asia. In terms of countries wholly located on the European continent, Germany had the highest population at 84.5 million, and was followed by the United Kingdom and France at 69.1 million and 66.5 million respectively. Characteristics of Europe's population There are approximately 384.6 million females in Europe, compared with 359.5 million males, a difference of around 25 million. In 1950, however, the male population has grown faster than the female one, with the male population growing by 104.7 million, and the female one by 93.6 million. As of 2024, the single year of age with the highest population was 37, at 10.6 million, while in the same year there were estimated to be around 136 thousand people aged 100 or over.

Throughout the 19th century, what we know today as Poland was not a united, independent country; apart from a brief period during the Napoleonic Wars, Polish land was split between the Austro-Hungarian, Prussian (later German) and Russian empires. During the 1800s, the population of Poland grew steadily, from approximately nine million people in 1800 to almost 25 million in 1900; throughout this time, the Polish people and their culture were oppressed by their respective rulers, and cultural suppression intensified following a number of uprisings in the various territories. Following the outbreak of the First World War, it is estimated that almost 3.4 million men from Poland served in the Austro-Hungarian, German and Russian armies, with a further 300,000 drafted for forced labor by the German authorities. Several hundred thousand were forcibly resettled in the region during the course of the war, as Poland was one of the most active areas of the conflict. For these reasons, among others, it is difficult to assess the extent of Poland's military and civilian fatalities during the war, with most reliable estimates somewhere between 640,000 and 1.1 million deaths. In the context of present-day Poland, it is estimated that the population fell by two million people in the 1910s, although some of this was also due to the Spanish Flu pandemic that followed in the wake of the war.

Poland 1918-1945

After more than a century of foreign rule, an independent Polish state was established by the Allied Powers in 1918, although it's borders were considerably different to today's, and were extended by a number of additional conflicts. The most significant of these border conflicts was the Polish-Soviet War in 1919-1920, which saw well over 100,000 deaths, and victory helped Poland to emerge as the Soviet Union's largest political and military rival in Eastern Europe during the inter-war period. Economically, Poland struggled to compete with Europe's other powers during this time, due to its lack of industrialization and infrastructure, and the global Great Depression of the 1930s exacerbated this further. Political corruption and instability was also rife in these two decades, and Poland's leadership failed to prepare the nation for the Second World War. Poland had prioritized its eastern defenses, and some had assumed that Germany's Nazi regime would see Poland as an ally due to their shared rivalry with the Soviet Union, but this was not the case. Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, in the first act of the War, and the Soviet Union launched a counter invasion on September 17; Germany and the Soviet Union had secretly agreed to do this with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in August, and had succeeded in taking the country by September's end. When Germany launched its invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 it took complete control of Poland, which continued to be the staging ground for much of the fighting between these nations. It has proven difficult to calculate the total number of Polish fatalities during the war, for a variety of reasons, however most historians have come to believe that the figure is around six million fatalities, which equated to almost one fifth of the entire pre-war population; the total population dropped by four million throughout the 1940s. The majority of these deaths took place during the Holocaust, which saw the Nazi regime commit an ethnic genocide of up to three million Polish Jews, and as many as 2.8 million non-Jewish Poles; these figures do not include the large number of victims from other countries who died after being forcefully relocated to concentration camps in Poland.

Post-war Poland

The immediate aftermath of the war was also extremely unorganized and chaotic, as millions were forcefully relocated from or to the region, in an attempt to create an ethnically homogenized state, and thousands were executed during this process. A communist government was quickly established by the Soviet Union, and socialist social and economic policies were gradually implemented over the next decade, as well as the rebuilding, modernization and education of the country. In the next few decades, particularly in the 1980s, the Catholic Church, student groups and trade unions (as part of the Solidarity movement) gradually began to challenge the government, weakening the communist party's control over the nation (although it did impose martial law and imprison political opponent throughout the early-1980s). Increasing civil unrest and the weakening of Soviet influence saw communism in Poland come to an end in the elections of 1989. Throughout the 1990s, Poland's population growth stagnated at around 38.5 million people, before gradually decreasing since the turn of the millennium, to 37.8 million people in 2020. This decline was mostly due to a negative migration rate, as Polish workers could now travel more freely to Western Europea...

In the past four centuries, the population of the United States has grown from a recorded 350 people around the Jamestown colony of Virginia in 1610, to an estimated 331 million people in 2020. The pre-colonization populations of the indigenous peoples of the Americas have proven difficult for historians to estimate, as their numbers decreased rapidly following the introduction of European diseases (namely smallpox, plague and influenza). Native Americans were also omitted from most censuses conducted before the twentieth century, therefore the actual population of what we now know as the United States would have been much higher than the official census data from before 1800, but it is unclear by how much. Population growth in the colonies throughout the eighteenth century has primarily been attributed to migration from the British Isles and the Transatlantic slave trade; however it is also difficult to assert the ethnic-makeup of the population in these years as accurate migration records were not kept until after the 1820s, at which point the importation of slaves had also been illegalized. Nineteenth century In the year 1800, it is estimated that the population across the present-day United States was around six million people, with the population in the 16 admitted states numbering at 5.3 million. Migration to the United States began to happen on a large scale in the mid-nineteenth century, with the first major waves coming from Ireland, Britain and Germany. In some aspects, this wave of mass migration balanced out the demographic impacts of the American Civil War, which was the deadliest war in U.S. history with approximately 620 thousand fatalities between 1861 and 1865. The civil war also resulted in the emancipation of around four million slaves across the south; many of whose ancestors would take part in the Great Northern Migration in the early 1900s, which saw around six million black Americans migrate away from the south in one of the largest demographic shifts in U.S. history. By the end of the nineteenth century, improvements in transport technology and increasing economic opportunities saw migration to the United States increase further, particularly from southern and Eastern Europe, and in the first decade of the 1900s the number of migrants to the U.S. exceeded one million people in some years. Twentieth and twenty-first century The U.S. population has grown steadily throughout the past 120 years, reaching one hundred million in the 1910s, two hundred million in the 1960s, and three hundred million in 2007. In the past century, the U.S. established itself as a global superpower, with the world's largest economy (by nominal GDP) and most powerful military. Involvement in foreign wars has resulted in over 620,000 further U.S. fatalities since the Civil War, and migration fell drastically during the World Wars and Great Depression; however the population continuously grew in these years as the total fertility rate remained above two births per woman, and life expectancy increased (except during the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918).

Since the Second World War, Latin America has replaced Europe as the most common point of origin for migrants, with Hispanic populations growing rapidly across the south and border states. Because of this, the proportion of non-Hispanic whites, which has been the most dominant ethnicity in the U.S. since records began, has dropped more rapidly in recent decades. Ethnic minorities also have a much higher birth rate than non-Hispanic whites, further contributing to this decline, and the share of non-Hispanic whites is expected to fall below fifty percent of the U.S. population by the mid-2000s. In 2020, the United States has the third-largest population in the world (after China and India), and the population is expected to reach four hundred million in the 2050s.

In 2024, the cattle population in Germany was 10.63 million. This was a slight decrease compared to 2023. Going further back and comparing to 1900, the cattle population then was 18.9 million. The timeline shows cattle population numbers in Germany from 1990 to 2023.

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.

At the beginning of the 19th century, the area of modern-day Italy, at the time a collection of various states and kingdoms, was estimated to have a population of nineteen million, a figure which would grow steadily throughout the century, and by the establishment of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861, the population would rise to just over 26 million.

Italy’s population would see its first major disruption during the First World War, as Italy would join the Allied Forces in their fight against Austria-Hungary and Germany. In the First World War, Italy’s population would largely stagnate at 36 million, only climbing again following the end of the war in 1920. While Italy would also play a prominent role in the Second World War, as the National Fascist Party-led country would fight alongside Germany against the Allies, Italian fatalities from the war would not represent a significant percentage of Italy’s population compared to other European countries in the conflict. As a result, Italy would exit the Second World War with a population of just over 45 million.

From this point onwards the Italian economy started to recover from the war, and eventually boomed, leading to increased employment and standards of living, which facilitated steady population growth until the mid-1980s, when falling fertility and birth rates would cause growth to largely cease. From this point onward, the Italian population would remain at just over 57 million, until the 2000s when it began growing again due to an influx of migrants, peaking in 2017 at just over 60 million people. In the late 2010s, however, the Italian population began declining again, as immigration slowed and the economy weakened. As a result, in 2020, Italy is estimated to have fallen to a population of 59 million.

In Germany, the crude birth rate in 1800 was 38 live births per thousand people, meaning that 3.8 percent of the population had been born in that year. In the nineteenth century, Germany's crude birth rate fluctuated between 34 and 40 births per thousand people. Since the turn of the twentieth century however, the crude birth rate has been in decline, although there were a few periods where it did increase. These increases took place during periods of economic recovery, after both world wars, and after the Great Depression. The largest period of increase was after the Second World War, and lasted until the late 1960s, before decreasing to 10.3 in 1980, where it then plateaus between eight and eleven, and it is expected to be 9.4 births per thousand people in 2020.

The fertility rate of a country is the average number of children that women from that country will have throughout their reproductive years. In Germany in 1800, the average woman of childbearing age would have 5.4 children over the course of their lifetime. It remained around this number until the late 1820s, when it then dropped to just under five, which was a long-term effect of the Napoleonic Period in Europe. From this point until the end of the nineteenth century, Germany's fertility rate was rather sporadic, reaching it's lowest point in 1855 with an average of 4.6 births per woman, and it's highest point in 1875 (just after the foundation of the German Empire in 1871), with an average of 5.4 live births per woman. From the beginning of the twentieth century until the end of the Second World War, Germany's fertility rate dropped from around 5 children per woman in 1900, to 1.9 in 1945. The only time where the fertility rate increased was in the inter-war years. Like other countries heavily involved in the Second World War, Germany (both East and West) experienced a Baby Boom from the late 1940s to the late 1960s, however it then dropped to it's lowest point of just 1.3 children per woman by 1995, shortly after the re-unification of Germany. In recent years, Germany's fertility rate has gradually been increasing again, and is expected to reach 1.6 in 2020, its highest rate in over forty years.

From 1273 until 1918, Austria was the seat of power of the House of Habsburg; one of Europe's most powerful and influential royal families of the past millennium. During this time and in the subsequent century since the Austro-Hungarian Empire's dissolution, the borders and demography of the Austrian state have changed dramatically, with the population growing from approximately three million people in 1800 to just over nine million in 2020. The area of modern Austria's population rose gradually throughout the nineteenth century, until the early 1900s, where it then dropped and fluctuated during the World Wars, before rising again until recent years.

End of an empire

The assassination of the heir to the Austrian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, caused Austria to declare war on Serbia, which marked the outbreak of the First World War. The war (and subsequent Spanish Flu pandemic) would see the deaths of more than 1.2 million people from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the area of modern Austria's population dropped by almost 400,000 people between 1916 and 1920. In the years preceding the First World War, Slavic nationalism and tensions between various ethnicities in the empire had escalated to a new level; following the dissolution of Austria-Hungary in 1918, new states such as Poland, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia were created for corresponding ethnic groups, while Austrian and Hungarian states were created for ethnic Germans and Magyars respectively (Austria still uses this border today). The Treaty of Versailles had forbidden Austria from joining Germany, however in 1938, German Chancellor Adolf Hitler (who was born in Austria) united the two nations as part of the German Third Reich, with overwhelming support by the people of Austria. In the next few years, Austria's population decreased slightly, as a result of the forced relocation of Jews and the outbreak of the Second World War. Due to the Austria-German union, separate records were not kept for Austrian and German deaths during the war, however most estimates put Austria's total at over 350,000 fatalities.

Post-war Austria

Following Germany's defeat, Austria was split into four separately administered sections, and then the Second Austrian Republic was established in 1955, declaring its permanent neutrality in foreign affairs. In the period after this Austria has enjoyed a period of continued prosperity with a high standard of living and reasonable economic growth. Population growth stagnated in the 80's with the legalization of abortion and improved access to contraception, but has grown steadily in the past three decades. Austria is consistently ranked among the top 20 richest countries in the world in terms of GDP per capita, and in 2018 it was ranked 20th in the world by the Human Development Index.

For most of the past two centuries, falling birth rates have been associated with societal progress. During the demographic transition, where pre-industrial societies modernize in terms of fertility and mortality, falling death rates, especially among infants and children, are the first major change. In response, as more children survive into adulthood, women have fewer children as the need to compensate for child mortality declines. This transition has happened at different times across the world and is an ongoing process, with early industrial countries being the first to transition, and Sub-Saharan African countries being the most recent to do so. Additionally, some Asian countries (particularly China through government policy) have gone through their demographic transitions at a much faster pace than those deemed more developed. Today, in countries such as Japan, Italy, and Germany, birth rates have fallen well below death rates; this is no longer considered a positive demographic trend, as it leads to natural population decline, and may create an over-aged population that could place a burden on healthcare systems.

Between 1820 and 1957, more than six million people emigrated from Germany to the United States. The period with the highest levels of migration came during the 1850s and the 1880s, and over 250 thousand documented migrants came to the US from Germany in 1882 alone. The reasons for these mass migrations were not linked to individual events, but were because of the improved access to trans-Atlantic travel, poor economic opportunities at home (particularly for farmers, who struggled with the rapid industrialization of Germany), and to escape religious persecution in Europe. The periods with the lowest levels of migration from Germany were between 1915 and 1945, and were likely caused by the First and Second World Wars, and also the Great Depression.

Over the course of the long nineteenth century, Estonia's population almost tripled, from 0.33 million in 1800, to over one million at the outbreak of the First World War. Throughout this time, Estonia was a part of the Russian Empire, however Germany then annexed the region during the First World War; when the German army eventually retreated in 1918, Estonian forces prevented Russia from re-taking the area in the Estonian War of Independence, and an independent Estonian Republic was gradually established between 1918 and 1920. Relative to its size and population, Estonia developed into a prosperous and peaceful nation in the interwar period, and Estonian language and culture thrived, although political stability proved difficult for the Baltic state.

Estonia in WWII Estonia's independence was short lived, as the country was then annexed by the Soviet Union as part of the secret Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between Germany and the Soviets. The invasion was achieved with little-to-no conflict, as Estonia capitulated when faced with the vastly superior military and navy of the Soviet Union. Annexation became official in June 1940; a puppet, communist government was quickly established, and many military and political rivals were imprisoned or executed under Soviet control. When Germany invaded the Soviet Union the following year, they quickly took control of Estonia, but simply replaced the Soviet Union's rule with their own, and did not grant re-establish sovereignty as many Estonians had expected or hoped for. By the war's end, Estonia suffered approximately 83,000 deaths at the hands of the Soviet Union and Germany, with almost 50,000 of these civilian deaths, and the rest were fatalities of Estonian soldiers who were forced to fight in other nations' armies.

Post-war Estonia Following the war, Estonia remained under Soviet control, and between 1950 and 1990, the population of Estonia grew steadily, from 1.1 million to almost 1.6 million. In the wake of the Soviet Union's collapse, Estonia established a rapid, but peaceful independence in 1991; and the population dropped by roughly ten percent by the end of the century. This was mostly due to non-Estonians returning to their country or region of origin, although a wave of Estonian emigration soon followed. Estonia joined the European Union in 2004, and from 2000 until 2015, Estonia's population continued to fall, reaching just 1.3 million people in 2015. Recent years, however, have seen a reversal in this trend, with limited growth since 2015; although demographers predict that Estonia's population will drop below one million people in the next half-century. The past three decades have marked the longest continuous period in the past 800 years, where the region of Estonia was not under German, Polish, Russian or Scandinavian control.

Albania, then known as Rumelia, was a province of the Ottoman Empire from the fifteenth century until it declared it's independence in 1912. Following a series of unsuccessful uprisings and brief occupations from nearby Serbia and Greece, Albania finally claimed its independence on November 28, 1912; however the Conference of London in 1913 then set the borders of the former-Ottoman states in Southern Europe, which left many ethnic Albanians living in other neighboring states, particularly Serbia (and what is now Kosovo). The newly-formed Albanian state collapsed in the wake of the First World War, and was controlled in parts by Greece, Italy and Serbia. The Paris Conference then established an independent Albanian state, which led to a period of political and economic turmoil that lasted until Italy's annexation of the region in 1939, during the Second World War. It is estimated that just under 3 percent of Albania's population perished as a direct result of the war, as Albania became the main theater for the Axis Powers' war against Greece. Italy then surrendered control of the area to Germany in 1943, and after the war ended in 1945, Albania became a Yugoslav satellite state and remained behind the Iron Curtain until it's collapse in the 1990s. Steady growth during the communist era From the war's end onwards, Albania's population enjoyed steady growth and almost tripled by 1990. Throughout this time, Albania underwent a series of political allegiances; first as a Yugoslav and then Soviet satellite states, but then became an important actor in the Sino-Soviet split, eventually siding with China in the 1960s. Gradually, Albania transitioned into a more isolationist and independent country in in the 1970s, and slowly adopted some more democratic practices. The total population surpassed two million people in the late 1960s, and three million in the late 1980s, but then a dramatic change in population growth occurred in the 1990s, as communism in Europe came to an end. Immediate decline following communism's end Increased freedom of movement, improved access to contraception and major lifestyle changes caused the population to fall into decline. The population did increase in the late 90s, despite a civil war in the first half of 1997 (in which over 2 thousand people died) sparked by a failure of the financial system in Albania. The Albanian Army was also involved in the war in neighboring Kosovo between 1998 and 1999. The 2000s brought about further decline, and the population is just 2.9 million in 2020, a decline of approximately 400,000 people in thirty years. Albania has been a candidate for accession to the EU since 2014, and membership would bring further change to the country.

A global phenomenon, known as the demographic transition, has seen life expectancy from birth increase rapidly over the past two centuries. In pre-industrial societies, the average life expectancy was around 24 years, and it is believed that this was the case throughout most of history, and in all regions. The demographic transition then began in the industrial societies of Europe, North America, and the West Pacific around the turn of the 19th century, and life expectancy rose accordingly. Latin America was the next region to follow, before Africa and most Asian populations saw their life expectancy rise throughout the 20th century.

In the year 1500, the share of Western Europe's population living in urban areas was just six percent, but this rose to 31 percent by the end of the 19th century. Despite this drastic change, development was quite slow between 1500 and 1800, and it was not until the industrial revolution when there was a spike in urbanization. As Britain was the first region to undergo the industrial revolution, from around the 1760s until the 1840s, these areas were the most urbanized in Europe by 1890. The Low Countries Prior to the 19th century, Belgium and the Netherlands had been the most urbanized regions due to the legacy of their proto-industrial areas in the medieval period, and then the growth of their port cities during the Netherlands' empirical expansion (Belgium was a part of the Netherlands until the 1830s). Belgium was also quick to industrialize in the 1800s, and saw faster development than its larger, more economically powerful neighbors, France and Germany. Least-urban areas Ireland was the only Western European region with virtually no urbanization in the 16th and 17th century, but the industrial growth of Belfast and Dublin (then major port cities of the British Empire) saw this change by the late-1800s. The region of Scandinavia was the least-urbanized area in Western Europe by 1890, but it saw rapid economic growth in Europe during the first half of the following century.

From the years between 1900 and 1945, France was the largest iron ore producer in Europe; however, output varied greatly per year during the most tumultuous period in Europe's modern history. Iron was one of the most important resources during this time due to its use in the production of steel; the most important metal in war manufacturing. Throughout this time, Germany or France generally had the largest annual iron ore output, and much of this was through control of Alsace-Lorraine. Alsace-Lorraine The Franco-Prussian War of 1870 led to the foundation of Germany as a nation state and the German annexation of Alsace and Moselle (northern Lorraine) from France. This was the resource-rich, industrial region just west of the Rhine, and it had a large population with mixed French and German heritage. The emerging German Empire then invested heavily in the region, and it was essential in their empirical expansion and industrialization at the turn of the century, even more so with the outbreak of the First World War. The region was then retroceded to France through the Treaty of Versailles, and in the late 1920s the annual iron output of France was already greater than the other five nations combined. In 1930, the Great Depression then saw the international demand for iron ore drop, but most countries' industries began growing again in 1933 (although the Russian economy was fairly unaffected by the Depression). Alsace Lorraine was then invaded again by Germany in 1940, although iron output was much lower as a large portion of the population was evacuated or conscripted into the German army. WWII in Scandinavia In the years leading up to the Second World War, industry in Germany relied heavily on the import of Swedish iron ore, and the German war effort depended on this supply from 1939 onward. While the Scandinavian countries maintained neutrality at the war's outset, Finland's Winter War with the Soviet Union posed a threat to the Swedish iron industry, largely located in the north. Germany then invaded both Denmark and Norway in order to protect its supply chain from an Allied attack from the west, although Sweden was allowed to maintain its neutrality. The German invasion of Scandinavia provided many tactical advantages, and formed a large part of Germany's "Atlantic Wall" defenses, however most historians concur that the primary reason for Germany's invasion of Scandinavia was to protect its trade with Sweden.

Throughout the 19th century, the share of military personnel employed by the United States government was below 0.2 percent of the total population in most years. There were noticeable spikes in enlistments and conscriptions during the American Civil War (1861-65), the First World War (1917-18*), and Second World War (1941-45*), as well as smaller increases during the Mexican-American War (1946-48) and the Spanish-American War (1898), but figures were generally much lower than the post-WWII era.

Following the Second World War, the United States abandoned many of its isolationist positions as it sought to become the world's leading superpower. This involved stationing millions of troops in overseas bases during the Cold War, in strategically important locations such as West Germany, Japan, and Taiwan. Additionally, involvement in conflicts such as the Korean War (1950-1953) and Vietnam War (1964-1973*) kept military employment high, usually between 1-2 percent until the 1970s. Figures remained just below the one percent mark until the 1990s, when the end of the Cold War and the growing influence of technology in conventional warfare saw a decrease in demand for many traditional combat roles. Despite U.S. involvement in a number of overseas conflicts in the 21st century, military personnel represented less than 0.5 percent of the total population in most years between 2000 and 2016.

As Europe industrialized and urbanized throughout the 20th century, the share of the working population employed in agriculture dropped significantly. Generally speaking, the wealthiest or most-industrialized nations had the lowest share of workers employed in agriculture in both 1930 and 1980. Additionally, in 1980, Czechoslovakia and East Germany were the only communist countries in Europe (of the seven listed here) with fewer than 15 percent of their workforce in employed in agriculture; whereas Greece, Ireland and Portugal were the only non-communist countries (of the 16 listed here) with employment levels above 15 percent.

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the majority of documented migration to the United States of American came from European countries. Between 1820 and 1957, of the approximate 41 million migrants to the US, over 34 million of these came from Europe. The most commonly documented countries of origin during this time were Germany (6.6 million), Italy (4.9 million), Ireland (4.6 million), Great Britain (4.5 million), and Russia (3.4 million). The first wave of mass migration came in the 1850s, as the Great famine crippled Ireland's population, and many in rural areas of mainland Europe struggled to adapt to industrialization, and economic opportunities attracted many in the 1870s, following the American Civil War. The 1880s saw another wave, as steam powered ships and lower fares made trans-Atlantic journeys much more affordable. The first wave of mass migration from Eastern and Southern Europe also arrived at this time, as industrialization and agricultural advancements led to high unemployment in these regions.

The majority of migrants to the United States settled in major urban centers, which allowed the expansion of industry, leading to the United States' emergence as one of the leading global economies at the turn of the twentieth century. The largest wave of migration to the United states during this period came in the first fifteen years of the 1900s. The influx of migrants from Northern and Western Europe had now been replaced by an influx from Eastern and Southern Europe (although migration from the British Isles was still quite high during this time). European migration fell to it's lowest levels in eighty years during the First World War, before fluctuating again in the interwar period, due to the Great Depression. As the twentieth century progressed, the continent with the highest levels of migration to the US gradually changed from Europe to Latin America, as economic opportunities in Western Europe improved, and the US' relationship with the Soviet Union and other Eastern, communist states became complicated.