INSEE Nouvelle-Aquitaine publishes this Thursday the results of its new census survey of the regional population, for the period 2014-2020. It confirms the data of recent years, namely that the large agglomerations, starting with Bordeaux Métropole, remain very attractive and pull the regional population upwards. This is also the case for coastal areas.
With 819,600 inhabitants on January 1, 2020, Bordeaux Métropole is the most populated neo-Aquitaine intermunicipal community, ahead of the Basque Country Urban Community (318,700 inhabitants) and the Limoges Métropole Urban Community (207,100 inhabitants). “The population of Bordeaux Métropole is growing steadily thanks to both natural and migratory growth,” emphasizes INSEE.
The population of Bordeaux down compared to 2019
Among the municipalities, Bordeaux obviously remains the most populated city in the metropolis with 259,809 inhabitants, but is down compared to 2019 (260,958 inhabitants). The dynamic remains positive, since there were only 246,586 inhabitants in 2014, but we note that the rate of increase in the population, which was + 1.2% between 2013 and 2019, is crumbling since it does not is more than +0.9% between 2014 and 2020. Behind Bordeaux, we find Mérignac with 74,009 inhabitants, against 72,197 inhabitants in 2019, Pessac with 65,866 inhabitants against 65,245 inhabitants in 2019, and Talence (44,359 inhabitants against 43,820 inhabitants in 2019). In metropolitan France, the strongest population growth is to be attributed to Villenave d’Ornon, with + 3.6% between 2014 and 2020, for a total of 38,444 inhabitants in 2020.
Population dynamics are not concentrated only in the metropolis of Bordeaux. “Other intermunicipalities have an even stronger population growth and, among the first ten, eight are Girondins and close to Bordeaux Métropole, like the Community of municipalities of Coteaux Bordelais, or the Community of agglomeration of the Arcachon North Basin” notes INSEE. There are thus strong population increases between 2014 and 2020 in Mios (+ 4.4%), Audenge (+ 4.1%) and Saint-André-de-Cubzac (+ 3.4%). These strong growths are each time “driven by a largely positive migratory balance, and most often supported by an equally positive natural balance, to be related to a larger population of childbearing age. »
A dynamic coastline
The other intermunicipalities where population growth is higher than the average are mainly coastal or retro-coastal. “The Landes coast is dynamic, as are the Médoc, the north of Charente-Maritime and the intercommunality of the Basque Country. Overall, the population gains of the neo-Aquitaine intermunicipalities are reduced as the distance from the metropolises and the coast increases. »
Bringing together more than a quarter of the regional population (1,636,400 inhabitants on January 1, 2020), the Gironde department is the most populated in New Aquitaine and the sixth French department. It is also the third metropolitan department where the population is growing the most strongly (+ 1.2% on average per year since 2014), thanks to a positive natural surplus (+ 0.2%, the only positive department in the region) and a high migratory surplus (+0.9%).
New Aquitaine is the third most populated region in France (6,033,952 inhabitants, or 9.2% of the national population) behind Ile-de-France and Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. Between 2014 and 2020, the population of Nouvelle-Aquitaine increased by 0.4% per year on average (+ 25,800 inhabitants each year), mainly thanks to an excess migratory balance (+ 0.6%), while the natural balance became loss-making (-0.1%).