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Friday, 29.03.2024, 11:59
Riga City Council disputes CSB data on the population
The local
authority of Riga uses population data provided by the Office of Citizenship
and Migration Affairs, which is the only authentic source of the registered
population data, based on information from the Latvian Population Register.
According to the data from the Office of Citizenship
and Migration Affairs, the population of Riga increased by 5,947 people, or by
almost 1%, last year.
These data also show that Riga had 698,529 registered
residents in January 2016 and 704,476 registered residents in January 2017, and
not 641,500 residents as claimed by the CSB. “Riga was thus the only large city
of Latvia to see the size of its population grow during this period,” Vidauskis
said.
According to the Office of Citizenship and Migration
Affairs’ statistics, the population of Riga has contracted by roughly 20,000
over the past decade, from 723,000 people in 2007, but the city council’s
representatives consider this to be a “small figure in comparison with the
overall reduction of the country’s population”.
As reported, according to CSB data, the population of
Riga has decreased by 121,000 people or about 16% in the past 17 years.
The CSB puts the number of residents in Riga this year
at 641,500, down from 761,500 in 2000.
The Riga center and the center neighborhood saw the
biggest drop in the number of residents – from 50,929 people in 2000 to 30,171
people early this year.
The statistics office said that obvious population
increase may be seen in territories with the largest multi-dwelling buildings
commissioned during this period, for example in neighborhoods of Dreilini and
Skanste. However, the most dramatic population decline may be observed in the
central part of the city and many neighborhoods with multi-dwelling buildings
erected during the Soviet period.