BERLIN, June 27 (Xinhua) -- Germany's population increased by 227,000 people year-on-year to around 83 million inhabitants in 2018, the German Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) announced on Thursday.
"It was the first time that Germany's population exceeded the threshold of 83 million," according to Destatis.
The increase was due to the "migration surplus," Destatis said. In 2018, about 386,000 more people immigrated to Germany than migrated from Germany to other countries. In 2017, the respective figure was 416,000.
The number of deaths exceeded the number of births in Germany by around 167,000 in 2018.
The German federal state of Bavaria registered the largest population increase (79,500), followed by the state of Baden-Wurttemberg and the capital Berlin.
A "gap" remains between the federal states in the territory of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) in eastern Germany and the other federal states in western Germany, Destatis pointed out.
The number of people living in eastern Germany "has fallen back to 1905 levels," the German Ifo Institute for Economic Research said in mid-June.
Despite the reunification of eastern and western Germany in 1990, "the population figures of the two parts of the country are drifting apart almost unchecked," commented Felix Roesel, author of the Ifo study.
In an outlook, Destatis projected that Germany's population "will increase at least until 2024 and decrease by 2040 at the latest." Destatis estimates that between 74 million and 83 million people will be living in Germany by the year 2060.
Assuming a "moderate development of birth frequency, life expectancy and net immigration," the population gap between eastern and western Germany is set to grow.
The population in western Germany's federal states would decline by 4 percent by 2060, according to Destatis. At the same time, the federal states in eastern Germany would witness a stronger decline of 18 percent.
