Question: How many people live in Europe?

Demographics of Europe





Figures for the population of Europe vary according to how one defines the boundaries of Europe. According to the United Nations, the population within the standard physical geographical boundaries comprised 737 million in 2010.[1] In 2010 the population was 711 million, defining Europe's boundaries as the continental divides of the Caucasus and Ural mountains and the  Bosporous, and including the European parts of the countries of Russia and of Turkey. 
Europe's population growth is comparatively low, and its median age comparatively high, in relation to the world's other continents, especially compared to Asia, Africa and Latin America. Most of Europe is in a mode of sub-replacement fertility, which means that each new(-born) generation is becoming less populous than the older.[2] Nonetheless most European countries still have growing populations due to immigration, population momentum and increases in life expectancy. Some current and past factors in European demography have included emigration, ethnic relations, economic immigration, a declining birth rate and an ageing population. 
History

Estimates for historical population sizes of Europe (including Central Asia, listed under "former USSR") based on Maddison (2007),[3]  in millions, with estimated percentage of world population:

Total population
330,000,000 people lived in Europe in 1916.[4] In 1950 there were 549,000,000.[1] The population of Europe in 2015 was estimated to be 741 million according to the United Nations,[1] which was slightly less than 11% of the world population. The precise figure depends on the exact definition of the geographic extent of Europe. The population of the European Union (EU) was 509 million as of 2015.[5] Non-EU countries situated in Europe in their entirety[6] account for another 94 million. Five transcontinental countries[7] have a total of 247 million people, of which about half reside in Europe proper.
As it stands now, around 12% of the world's people live in Europe. If demographic trends keep their pace, its share may fall to around 7% in 2050, but still amounting to 716 million people in absolute numbers, according to the United Nations estimate.[1] (The decline in the percentage is partly due to high fertility rates in other parts of the world.) The sub-replacement fertility and high life expectancy in most European states mean a declining and aging population as it is not offset by the current immigration level. This situation is expected to be a challenge for their economies, political and social institutions. Countries on the edges of Europe, except for southern Europe, have generally stronger growth than Central European counterparts. Albania and Ireland have strong growth, hitting over 1% annually.
Population by country


According to different definitions, such as consideration of the concept of Central Europe, the following territories and regions may be subject to various other categorisations aside from geographic conventions.

Age

Mirroring their mostly sub-replacement fertility and high life expectancy, European countries tend to have older populations overall. They had nine of the top ten highest median ages in national populations in 2005. Only Japan had an older population.[8]
Religion


Over the last several centuries, religious practice has been on the decline in a process of secularization. Several European countries have experienced a decline in church attendance as well as a decline in the number of people professing a religious belief. The 2010 Eurobarometer survey found that, on average, 51% of the citizens of the EU member states state that they believe there is a God, 26% believe there is some sort of spirit or life force and 20% don't believe there is any sort of spirit, God or life force. 3% declined to answer.[9]  The Eurobarometer survey must be taken with caution, however, as there are discrepancies between it and national census results. For example, in the United Kingdom, the 2001 census revealed that over 70% of the population regarded themselves as "Christians" with only 15% professing to have no religion, though the wording of the question has been criticized as "misleading" by the British Humanist Association.[10] The 2011 census showed a dramatic reduction to less than 60% of the population regarding themselves as "Christians".[11]
Despite its decline, Christianity is still the largest religion in Europe. According to a survey published in 2010, 76.2% of Europeans identified themselves as Christians.[12][13] Catholics were the largest Christian group in Europe, accounting for more than 48% of European Christians.[14] The second-largest Christian group in Europe was the Orthodox, who made up 32% of European Christians.[14] And about 19% of European Christians were part of the Protestant tradition.
According to a 2003 study,[15] 47% of French people declared themselves as agnostics in 2003. This situation is often called "Post-Christian Europe". A decrease in religiousness and church attendance in western Europe (especially in Belgium, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Norway, the Netherlands and Sweden) has been noted. According to a survey published in 2012 Atheists and Agnostics make up about 18.2% of the European population.[16] According to the same survey the religiously unaffiliated make up the majority of the population only in two European countries: Czech Republic (75%) and Estonia (60%).[16]
According to another survey about Religiosity in the European Union from 2012 by Eurobarometer, Christianity was the largest religion in the European Union (accounting for 72% of the EU population), Catholics were with 48% the largest Christian group in EU, Protestants made up 12%, Eastern Orthodox made up 8% and other Christians accounted for 4% of the EU population.[17] non-believers/agnostics accounted for 16%, atheists accounted for 7% and Muslims accounted for 2%.[18]
Ethnic groups


Pan and Pfeil (2004) count 87 distinct "peoples of Europe", of which 33 form the majority population in at least one sovereign state, while the remaining 54 constitute ethnic minorities. The total number of  national minority populations in Europe is estimated at 105 million people, or 14% of 770 million Europeans. (including Europeans in Asian Russia)[19]
The largest ethnic groups are the Russians, of whom 92 million reside in Europe and the Germans, with 72 million. In some countries such as the United Kingdom, France and Spain, the designation of nationality may controversially take on ethnic aspects, subsuming smaller ethnic groups such as Scots, Welsh, Bretons and Basques, making it difficult to quantify a "British" or "French" ethnicity, for example.
Approximately 20 million non-Europeans live in the EU, 4% of the overall population.[20]

Language

Most of the languages of Europe belong to the Indo-European language family. This family is divided into a number of branches, including Romance, Germanic, Baltic, Slavic, Albanian, Celtic and Greek. The Uralic languages, which include Hungarian, Finnish, and Estonian, also have a significant presence in Europe. The Turkic and Mongolic families also have several European members, while the North Caucasian and Kartvelian families are important in the southeastern extremity of geographical Europe. The Basque language of the western Pyrenees is an isolate unrelated to any other group, while Maltese is the only Semitic language in Europe with national language status.
The European Union (EU), which currently excludes many European countries (i.e. Norway, Russia and Switzerland), recognises 23 official languages as of 2007.[22] According to the same source, the eight most natively spoken languages in the EU are (percentage of total EU population[22]):
19% German
13% French
12% English
11% Italian
9%  Spanish
9%  Polish
7%  Romanian
5%  Dutch
These figures change when foreign language skills are taken into account. The list below shows the top eight European languages ordered by total number of speakers in the EU:[22]
49% English
35% German
26% French
16% Italian
15% Spanish
10% Polish
7% Russian
6% Dutch
This makes German the most frequently spoken native language and English the most frequently spoken non-native language overall in the European Union, with German the second-most common language overall.
Languages that are not official state languages are protected in many European countries by the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. These can include languages spoken by relatively many people, such as Catalan and Basque in Spain, as well as languages spoken by relatively few such as Welsh, Cornish and Scottish Gaelic in the United Kingdom.
Genetic origins


Homo sapiens appeared in Europe roughly 40,000 years ago, with the settlement of the Cro-magnons. Over the prehistoric period there was continual immigration to Europe, notably by the immediate descendants of the Proto-Indo-Europeans who migrated west after the advent of the Neolithic revolution.[23]
Mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosome DNA
Studies of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) have suggested substantial genetic homogeneity of European populations,[24] with only a few geographic or linguistic isolates appearing to be genetic isolates as well.[25] On the other hand, analyses of the Y chromosome [26][27] and of autosomal diversity[28] have shown a general gradient of genetic similarity running from the southeast to the northwest of the continent.
Y-chromosome DNA
Listed here are the average frequencies of human Y-chromosome DNA haplogroups found in indigenous people of geographical Europe (including only the European parts of Russia and Turkey).[29]

Population structure
A study in May 2009 [30]  that examined 19 populations from Europe using 270,000 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) highlighted the genetic diversity of European populations corresponding to the northwest to southeast gradient and distinguished "several distinct regions" within Europe:
Finland
the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania), western Russia and Poland.
Central and Western Europe.
Italy, South-Eastern Europe, Southern Russia.
In this study, Fst (Fixation index) was found to correlate considerably with geographic distances ranging from ≤0.0010 for neighbouring populations to 0.0230 for Southern Italy and Finland. For comparisons, pair-wise Fst of non-European samples were as follows: Europeans – Africans (Yoruba) 0.1530; Europeans – Chinese 0.1100; Africans (Yoruba) – Chinese 0.1900.[31]
See also
Area and population of European countries
Classical demography
European diasporas
European Union statistics
Migration from Latin America to Europe
Largest cities of the European Union by population within city limits
Largest urban areas of the European Union
List of European countries by population growth rate
List of European countries by population
List of metropolitan areas in Europe
Medieval demography
Notes
^a:Continental regions as per . Depending on definitions, various territories cited below may be in one or both of Europe and Asia, or Africa.

^b:Includes Transnistria, a region that has declared, and de factoachieved, independence; however, it is not recognised de jure by sovereign states.

^c:Russia is considered a transcontinental country in Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. However, the population and area figures include the entire state.

^d:Guernsey, the Isle of Man and Jersey are Crown dependencies of the United Kingdom. Other Channel Islands legislated by the Bailiwick of Guernsey include Alderney and Sark.

^e:Cyprus is sometimes considered transcontinental country. Physiographically entirely in Western Asia it has strong historical and sociopolitical connections with Europe. The population and area figures refer to the entire state, including the de facto independent part Northern Cyprus.
^f:Figures for Portugal include the Azores and Madeira archipelagos, both in Northern Atlantic.

^g:Area figure for Serbia includes Kosovo, a province that unilaterally declared its independence from Serbia on 17 February 2008, and whose sovereign status is unclear. Population and density figures are 2010 estimates and are given without the disputed territory of Kosovo.

^h:Figures for France include metropolitan France but not overseas departments and territories as they are not part of the European continent.

^j:Kazakhstan is physiographically considered a transcontinental country in Central Asia (UN region) and Eastern Europe, with European territory west of the Ural Mountains and both the Ural and Emba rivers. However, area and population figures refer to the entire country.

^k:Armenia is physiographically entirely in Western Asia, but it has strong historical and sociopolitical connections with Europe. The population and area figures include the entire state respectively.

^m:Georgia is often considered a transcontinental country in Western Asia and Eastern Europe. However, the population and area figures include the entire state. This also includes Georgian estimates for Abkhazia and South Ossetia, two regions that have declared and de factoachieved independence. The International recognition, however, is limited.

^o:The total figures for area and population includes the whole of the transcontinental countries. The precision of these figure is compromised by the ambiguous geographical extend of Europe and the lack of references for European portions of transcontinental countries.

^p:Kosovo unilaterally declared its independence from Serbia on 17 February 2008. Its sovereign status is unclear. Its population is a 2007 estimate.

^r:Abkhazia and South Ossetia unilaterally declared their independence from Georgia on 25 August 1990 and 28 November 1991 respectively. Their sovereign status is unclear. Population figures stated as of 2003 census and 2000 estimates respectively.




 (Note that this only covers present and projected future population.)