A new issue in the Statistical Series on the population development in 2018 published by Statistics Iceland shows that 1 January 2019 the population of Iceland was 356,991 and grew by 2.5% (8,541 individuals) from the previous year.
Population decline was only present in the Northeast which lost eight persons of its population in 2018. All other regions experienced a population increase. The Southwest region gained proportionally the most (5.2%), followed by the South (3.2%) and the Capital region (2.6%).
Life births in Iceland were 4,228 in 2018, 2,242 boys and 1,986 girls. The number of births increased from the previous year when 4,071 children were born. The total fertility rate in 2018 was 1.707, slightly less than its previous value (1.710) in 2017.
In 2018, 2,254 individuals died in Iceland, 1,139 men and 1,115 women. The mortality rate was 6.4 per 1,000 inhabitants and the infant mortality rate was 1.7 per 1,000 life births. In 2018, the life expectancy at birth in Iceland was 81.0 years for men and 84.1 years for women.
There were 6,556 more immigrants than emigrants in 2018, 4,145 men and 2,476 women, mostly foreign citizens. The net Icelandic migration was -130 individuals.
The dependency ratio was 64.9% 1 January 2019, lower than in the previous year. The dependency ratio is calculated as the ratio of the young and old age population relative to the working age population (defined as 20–64 years of age).
Immigrants represented 14.1% of the population 1 January 2019, the highest proportion ever. The number of immigrants was 50,272, 38.1% were Polish citizens. The number of second generation immigrants rose from 4,861 in 2018 to 5,263 in 2019.
The number of nuclear families, i.e. couples with or without children under the age of 18 years or parents with children under 18 years, was 83,358 1 January 2019, compared with 80,102 families in the previous year.