The Central Bureau of Statistics released an estimate report about the population of Croatia in 2018, which shows that in the middle of last year Croatia had a population of 4,087,843, which is 0.9 percent less than in the previous year – Index.hr reports.

A 0.9 percent drop in population means that Croatia has 36,688 people less, and almost all counties have experienced a fall, except for the City of Zagreb, which has a growth of 0.22 percent, and the County of Istria, which has 0.26 percent more inhabitants.

The largest drop in population was recorded in Vukovar-Srijem County with 3.04 percent fewer inhabitants.

Of the total population, 1,975,052 are men (48.3 percent) and 2,112,791 are women (51.7 percent). The lowest number of women is recorded in the County of Lika-Senj (50.1 percent), and the highest is in the City of Zagreb (53.1 percent).

According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, in 2018 aging of the population continues. The average age of the total population of Croatia is 43.4 years (men 41.5, women 45 years), which makes it one of the oldest nations in Europe – they explain.

The share of young people (0-19 years), which is 19.6 percent of the total population, contributes most to the aging of the population. The lowest number of young people is in the County of Primorje-Gorski kotar (16.6 percent) and the highest in Medimurje County (22 percent).

The share of the fertile contingent in women is also continuously declining, reaching 41.5 percent in 2018.

The highest share of population aged 65 and over in the total population was in the County of Sibenik-Knin (25.3 percent) and in the County of Lika-Senj (24.9 percent) and the lowest was in Medimurje County (18.2 percent).

Most people lived in Zagreb (804,507 or 19.7 percent) and Split-Dalmatia County (448,071 or 11 percent), and the least in Pozega-Slavonia (67,862 or 1.7 percent) and Lika-Senj County (45,184 or 1. 1 percent).