Where Lithuania gains and loses population

A national total that hides the spread

Taken as a whole, the country shows a change of −1.2% in its population over ten years, which looks like stability. Underneath, the picture is very different: in the median municipality the change is −11.1%, so the typical local population is clearly smaller than it was a decade ago.

That gap between the national figure and the typical place has a simple explanation. A handful of municipalities added residents quickly, and because several of them are among the most populous, their gains offset the losses spread across many smaller ones. Neringa Municipality leads the table with a change of +56.7%, and the figure below lists the ten places where the change is highest.

Size matters when reading these percentages. Vilnius City Municipality has 607,404 residents, far more than the 4,451 of Neringa Municipality, so a change of +13.1% in the capital moves many more people than a change of +56.7% on the coast.

The belt around the big cities

The clearest pattern in the table is geographic. Each of the three biggest cities has a district municipality around or beside it, and in each pair the district has grown faster than the city.

Take the second-largest city, Kaunas City Municipality, whose population shows a change of +0.3%, close to flat. The district around it, Kaunas District Municipality, shows +26.6%. The same split appears beside the port city, where Klaipėda District Municipality reaches +36.7% against +2.2% in Klaipėda City Municipality, and around the capital, where Vilnius District Municipality reaches +16.8% against +13.1% in Vilnius City Municipality.

Two other municipalities beside the capital, Trakai District Municipality and Elektrėnai Municipality, also appear in the table of gains, with changes of +5.5% and +3.3%. They lie in the same county as the capital, which confirms that the growth reaches well beyond the city limits.

Young families are part of the explanation. In the district beside the port city, young children make up 17.5% of the population, the highest share in the country. The district around the second-largest city comes next with 17.0%, against 12.4% in the median municipality. The comparison below sets the cities and their districts side by side.

Seaside gains and regional cities

The coast offers the other striking numbers. Neringa Municipality is ranked 1 of 60, with a change of +56.7% on a base of only 4,451 residents, and the resort town of Palanga City Municipality shows +19.6%. Resort towns can see their registered population climb when holiday homes become permanent addresses or when seasonal staff settle for good; the figures record residents, not their reasons for moving.

Inland, a few regional cities hold up better than the countryside around them. Šiauliai City Municipality shows a change of +7.7%, while the district municipality that surrounds it shows −3.9%. That is still modest next to the belts around the three big cities, but it marks a city that keeps its residents while its hinterland loses them.

Far from the big cities, steady losses

Elsewhere, the movement mostly runs the other way. Pagėgiai Municipality records a change of −20.9%, with Ignalina District Municipality at −20.4% and Skuodas District Municipality at −19.6%. Next in the ranking come Kelmė District Municipality at −19.5%, Lazdijai District Municipality at −19.3% and Pakruojis District Municipality at −19.2%. The figure below lists the ten places where the change is lowest. They are spread across several counties, from the western border to the north-east, and almost all lie far from the three big cities.

The pattern is regional as well as local. In Utena County, every municipality has lost people: even the best result, −7.5% in Visaginas Municipality, is negative. The same holds in Panevėžys County, where the best result is −5.4% in Panevėžys District Municipality.

The causes sit outside the table, but the age statistics hint at them. In the median municipality the birth rate is 5.6 ‰ and the death rate is 15.6 ‰, so deaths outnumber births before any movement of people is counted.

Reading the percentages with care

Percentages need care at both ends of the table. A small municipality can swing by several points when only a small group of residents arrives or leaves, and boundaries matter too: a family that moves from a city to the neighbouring district stays in the same urban area but is counted as leaving one place and joining another.

A sensible way to read the table is to look at two columns together, the percentage change and the size of the population it applies to, and then to compare each district municipality with the city it surrounds. The links below lead to the full ranking of population change and to the county pages where neighbouring municipalities can be compared side by side.