Demographic features of the population of Lithuania include population density, ethnicity, level of education, health, economic status, and religious affiliations.
The population of Lithuania increased after the end of World War II, reaching its apex in 1991 with 3.7 million, but started to decline after the Dissolution of the Soviet Union later that year, which negatively impacted the country. As social problems ensued after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the birth rate decreased and the population fell sharply due to a relatively high death rate, mass emigration and a large increase of its suicide rate that made Lithuania one of the countries with the highest suicide rates in the world. This caused its population to drop below 3 million in 2012, losing over a quarter of its population in 30 years. As of today, Lithuania's fertility rate is one of the lowest in the world. However, while its suicide rate would remain the highest in the European Union, it dropped over time. Since 2019, more Lithuanian citizens have been returning to Lithuania than leaving, largely due to the rapidly improving quality of life and economic conditions in their homeland. There is an increasing trend among returning Lithuanian emigres to choose rural regions over urban ones.
History
Prehistory The earliest evidence of inhabitants in present-day Lithuania dates back to 10,000 BC. Between 3000 and 2000 BC, the people of the Corded Ware culture spread over a vast region of eastern Europe, between the Baltic Sea and the Vistula River in the West and the Moscow–Kursk line in the East. Merging with the indigenous peoples, they gave rise to the Balts, a distinct Indo-European ethnic group whose descendants are the present-day Lithuanian and Latvian nations and the former Old Prussians.
Grand Duchy of Lithuania
The name of Lithuania – Lithuanians – was first mentioned in 1009. Among its etymologies there are a derivation from the word Lietava, for a small river, a possible derivation from a word leičiai, but most probable is the name for union of Lithuanian ethnic tribes ('susilieti, lietis' means to unite and the word 'lietuva' means something which has been united).
The primary Lithuanian state, the Duchy of Lithuania, emerged in the territory of Lietuva, the ethnic homeland of Lithuanians. At the birth of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (GDL), ethnic Lithuanians made up about 70% of the population. Statistical numbers, probably accepted in historiography (the sources, their treatment, the procedure of counting is not discussed in this book) are given, according which in 1260 there were about 0.27 million Lithuanians of 0.4 million of a whole population; in percentage: 67,5%. With the acquisition of new Ruthenian territories, this proportion decreased to 50% and later to 30%. By the time of the largest expansion towards Kievan Rus' lands, at the end of the 13th and during the 14th century, the territory of the GDL was about , of which 10% was ethnically Lithuanian.Bjorn Wiemer, Dialect and language contacts on the territory of the Grand Duchy from the 15th century until 1939, Kurt Braunmüller, Gisella Ferraresi, Aspects of multilingualism in European language history, John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2003, , Google Print, p.109; 125 The ethnic Lithuanian population is estimated to have been 420,000 out of 1.4 million in 1375 (the territory was about ), and 550,000 out of 3.8 million in 1490 (territory: 850,000 km2)Letukienė, N., Istorija. Politologija: kurso santrauka istorijos egzaminui, 2003, p. 182. There can be found also different numbers, for example: Kevin O'Connor, The history of the Baltic States, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2003, . Here author estimates that there were 9 million inhabitants in GDL, and 1 million of them were ethnic Lithuanians by 1387. In addition to the Ruthenians and Lithuanians, other significant ethnic groups throughout GDL were Jews and Tatars. The combined population of Poland and GDL in 1493 is estimated as 7.5 million, of whom 3.25 million were Poles, 3.75 million Ruthenians and 0.5 million Lithuanians.Based on 1493 population map (p.92) from Iwo Cyprian Pogonowski, Poland a Historical Atlas, Hippocrene Books, 1987,
With the Union of Lublin Lithuanian Grand Duchy lost large part of lands to the Polish Crown (see demographics of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth). An ethnic Lithuanian proportion being about 1/4 in GDL after the Union of Lublin was held until the partitions. There was much devastation and population loss throughout the GDL in the mid and late 17th century,Jarmo Kotilaine, Russia's foreign trade and economic expansion in the seventeenth century: windows on the world, BRILL, 2005, , Google Print, p.45 including the ethnic Lithuanian population in Vilnius voivodeship. Besides devastation, the Ruthenian population declined proportionally after the territorial losses to the Russian Empire. In 1770 there were about 4.84 million inhabitants in GDL, of which the largest ethnic group were Ruthenians, about 1.39 million – Lithuanians. The voivodeships with a majority ethnic Lithuanian population were Vilnius, Trakai and Samogitian voivodeships, and these three voivodeships comprised the political center of the state. In the southern angle of Trakai voivodeship and south-eastern part of Vilnius voivodeship there were also many Belarusians; in some of the south-eastern areas they were the major linguistic group.
The Ruthenian population formed a majority in GDL from the time of the GDL's expansion in the mid 14th century; and the adjective "Lithuanian", besides denoting ethnic Lithuanians, from early times denoted any inhabitant of GDL, including Slavs and Jews.
The Ruthenian language, corresponding to today's Belarusian and Ukrainian, is historiographically known as Chancery Slavonic, as the Chancery of Vilnius used it as its administrative language for the entire Grand Duchy of Lithuania. However, there are fewer extant documents written in this language than those written in Latin and Low German from the time of Vytautas. Later, Ruthenian became the main language of documentation and writing. In the years that followed, it was the main language of government until the introduction of Polish as the chancellery language of the Lithuanian–Polish Commonwealth in 1697; however there are also examples of documents written in Ruthenian from the second half of the 18th century. Lietuvos Didžiosios kunigaikštystės kanceliarinės slavų kalbos termino nusakymo problema Z. Zinkevičius The Lithuanian language was used orally in Vilnius, Trakai and Samogitian voivodeships, and by small numbers of people elsewhere. At the royal court in Vilnius of Sigismund II Augustus, the last Grand Duke of Lithuania prior to the Union of Lublin, both Polish and Lithuanian were spoken equally widely.Daniel. Z Stone, A History of East Central Europe , p. 4, 52.
Russian Empire
After the Third Partition of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth on October 24, 1795, between the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia and the Habsburg monarchy, the Commonwealth ceased to exist and Lithuania became a part of the Russian empire. After the abolition of serfdom in 1861, the use of the Polish language noticeably increased in eastern Lithuania and western Belarus. Many Lithuanians, living further east, were unable to receive the Lithuanian printed books smuggled into Lithuania by knygnešiai during the time of the ban on printing books in the Latin alphabet, and they switched to Polish. Although this also used the Latin alphabet, it was much less affected by the ban, because Polish was still used by the politically important class of the nobility, and also used predominantly in the biggest towns of Lithuania, and supported by the church.
National Revival The Lithuanian National Revival had begun to intensify by the end of the 19th century, and the number of Lithuanian speakers and people identifying themselves as ethnic Lithuanians started to increase; but at the same time many Polish speaking Lithuanians, especially former szlachta, cut themselves adrift from the Lithuanian nation. There were population losses due to several border changes, Soviet deportations, the Holocaust of the Lithuanian Jews, and German and Polish repatriations during and after World War II. After World War II, the ethnic Lithuanian population remained stable: 79.3% in 1959 to 83.5% in 2002. Lithuania's citizenship law and the Constitution meet international and OSCE standards, guaranteeing universal human and civil rights.
Population
Life expectancy at birth
Based on 2023 data: total: 77.3 years male: 72.86 years female: 81.71 years
Lithuania has a large difference between the life expectancy of men and women, which is 9 years. PeriodLife expectancy inYears1950–195560.831955–1960 66.881960–1965 69.881965–1970 71.281970–1975 71.191975–1980 70.671980–1985 70.531985–1990 71.571990–1995 69.731995–2000 70.252000–2005 71.622005–2010 71.862010–2015 73.99
Vital statistics Source: Statistical yearbooks of Lithuania
Notable events in Lithuanian demographics:
1915–1918 – World War I
Average population (1996 onwards, at beginning of the year)Live birthsDeathsNatural changeCrude birth rate (per 1000)Crude death rate (per 1000)Natural change (per 1000)Crude migration change (per 1000) 1915 2,137,000 38,722 43,596 −4,874 18.1 20.4 −2.3 2.3 1916 2,141,000 35,565 31,512 4,053 16.6 14.7 1.9 −3.3 1917 2,134,000 32,266 43,047 −10,781 15.1 20.2 −5.1 −1.0 1918 2,121,000 33,176 47,522 −14,346 15.6 22.4 −6.8 0.7 1919 2,108,000 41,095 51,930 −10,835 19.5 24.6 −5.1 3.2 1920 2,104,000 47,642 44,487 3,155 22.6 21.1 1.5 4.2 1921 2,116,000 51,864 31,915 19,949 24.5 15.1 9.4 0.1 1922 2,136,000 58,064 37,598 20,466 27.2 17.6 9.6 2.1 1923 2,161,000 60,869 32,432 28,437 28.2 15.0 13.2 −0.2 1924 2,189,000 63,864 35,493 28,371 29.2 16.2 13.0 −0.2 1925 2,217,000 63,743 37,179 26,564 28.8 16.8 12.0 0.6 1926 2,245,000 63,655 34,380 29,275 28.4 15.3 13.0 −0.5 1927 2,273,000 66,114 38,897 27,217 29.1 17.1 12.0 0.3 1928 2,301,000 65,945 35,698 27,116 28.7 15.5 11.8 −0.1 1929 2,328,000 63,083 39,669 23,414 27.1 17.0 10.1 1.1 1930 2,354,000 64,164 37,151 27,013 27.3 15.8 11.5 −0.5 1931 2,380,000 63,419 37,478 25,941 26.6 15.7 10.9 0.4 1932 2,407,000 65,371 36,577 28,794 27.2 15.2 12.0 0.0 1933 2,436,000 62,145 32,749 29,396 25.5 13.4 12.1 −0.6 1934 2,464,000 60,770 35,789 24,981 24.7 14.5 10.1 −0.4 1935 2,488,000 57,970 34,595 23,375 23.3 13.9 9.4 0.6 1936 2,513,000 60,446 33,440 25,939 24.1 13.3 10.3 −0.4 1937 2,538,000 56,393 33,260 22,433 22.2 13.1 8.8 1.1 1938 2,563,000 57,951 32,256 24,562 22.6 12.6 9.6 −60.7 19391 2,432,000 54,184 32,983 21,201 22.3 13.6 8.7 1 the figures of 1939 exclude the Klaipėda Region
Source: Official Statistics Portal