Jonn Elledge (editor of the great website City Metrics) points out to this amazing map showing the population changes of every European municipality between 2001 and 2011. The colors represent average annual population variation, where red gradients represent growth rates between 0 and 2 per cent or over, and blue gradients represent depopulation rates of the same magnitudes. Yellow areas are stable.
Despite converging trends of low fertility and mortality rates in European countries, the map shows a tremendous diversity in the population dynamics of European municipalities, mostly driven by migration trends. A common trend in almost all countries, though, is the population growth in cities and suburban municipalities. This population shift to cities also present remarkably different patterns in different countries, what probably gives some good material for researchers working on spatial demography and urbanization. There are plenty other interesting things to comment on this map but this would go beyond my capacity and my procrastination time limit .
The maps was created by the German Federal Office for Building and Regional Planning (BBR) and you can check a high definition version of the map here.
Population Growth Rates of European municipalities, 2001-2011
