KURZEME REGION - Population
Two major cities cover almost half of population
Currently the population of Kurzeme region stands at 315 600, with the percentage of women (53%) exceeding that of men. This is Latvia's smallest region accounting for 13.5% of the total population of the country. Since the beginning of the 1990s, the region's population has decreased by 50 200 or 13.7%. This is the second biggest fall in the population size in the country. 42 per cent of the total population of the region live in the region's major cities, Liepaja and Ventspils.
The region of Kurzeme is characterised by a rather ageing population. The percentage of the population aged over 65 years in the region is 15.1% compared with 15.9 % for the country as a whole. 20.8% of the region's population are of retirement age, 61.5% are of working age and 17.7% are below working age. During the last decade, the number of 65-year olds and older has increased by 9% whereas the number of young people (under 25 years) has decreased by 19% since 1993.
Since 1990 the birth rate in the region has almost halved from 15.3 to 9.7. In 2002, 3 058 babies were born in the region of Kurzeme (9.7 per 1000 population) and that is slightly above the average in the country (8.6%). Infant mortality is higher than the national average - 10.8 against 9.8 per 1000 births in Latvia.
At the beginning of 2003, ethnic Latvians also dominated the national structure of the population in Kurzeme region (73.3%) followed by ethnic Russians (16%), with Lithuanians, Ukrainians and Belorussians also present. The proportion of Romanies found here and also in Zemgale is the highest in Latvia. However, in the city of Liepaja the percentage of ethnic Latvians living there is, at 50.7%, about half the total population.
As elsewhere in Latvia, there was extensive post-war immigration from other former USSR countries, especially to Liepaja, Ventspils and Kuldiga district, but this was abruptly reversed after the re-establishment of Latvian independence, to the extent that emigration exceeded immigration. In 1990-2002, net migration totalled almost minus 37 600, which was 20% of Latvia's total net migration in that period.
As in other Latvian regions, the population in the region is on a gentle downward trend both due to natural movement and to migration. In the demographic account, natural movement in the population (excess of deaths over births) over the past 13 years has accounted for 25% of the decrease whereas migration, at 75%, had the greater effect.
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