Friday, January 20, 2006
Number of Foreign Residents in the Canary Islands Tripples in Five years
Two districts in Tenerife, Santiago del Teide and Adeje, are amongst the top 10 in Spain with the largest foreign populations. In the last year alone in the Canary Islands, the foreign population increased by 37,000 - some 20 percent - to 222,260 bringing it to 11.3 percent of the population.
The Canary Islands occupy seventh place among Spanish communities with the largest proportions of foreign population. Though the increase in the Canaries was of 20 percent in the last year, the average rise nationally was 23 percent.
Nevertheless, the Canary Islands have always traditionally been amongst those regions with the highest foreign populations (You could say right from the days of the Spanish conquest in the 15th Century) and even at the moment are still overtaken by various communities such as the Balaeric Islands, Murcia, Valencia, Madrid and Cataluña.
The increase in the foreign population continues to be the principal characteristic of the demographic evolution of the Canary Islands, especially in some areas of the south of Tenerife, where, for the first time in the district of Santiago de Teide, the number of registered foreigners (51.5 percent) is greater than the number of Spanish. Not far behind is Adeje where foreign residents make up 46.1 percent of the population.
The progression though, in the last few years, has been continuous. In 2000, a total of 77,193 foreigners were registered in the islands, which number rose to 107,930 in 2001, 143,138 in 2002, 179,493 in 2003 and 185,781 in 2004, to the total in 2005 of 222,260.
In the province of Santa Cruz there are more foreigners registered (113,469) than there are in Las Palmas. In total, there are eight districts - four per province - where the number of foreign residents is greater than 25 percent.
Santiago de Teide has a population of just 11,212 people, of whom, 5,786 are foreign residents. However, 32.8 percent of the foreign residents of Santiago de Teide and 27.6 percent of those in Puerto de la Cruz are over 65 years of age. There are no Canarian districts among those with a high proportion of foreigners, where those residents are of working age.
Adeje increased its population by 3,300 in the last year, of whom 3,000 were foreigners. There are a total of 33,722 inhabitants, 15,556 of whom are foreign residents.
Arona had the largest increase in absolute numbers of population in the last year, with almost 6,000 additional inhabitants, of whom 5,300 are foreigners and now represent 41 percent of the total of 65,550 inhabitants.
Meanwhile, at national level the largest numbers of foreign residents are from Morocco, followed by those from Equador, Rumania and Columbia, in the the Canary Islands, the greatest number are German, followed by English, Columbians, Argentinians, Moroccans and Venezuelans. Also, the number of Bolivians in the islands has duplicated in the last year to 2,000.
Of the total of 1,968,280 people registered in the Canary Islands on January 1, 2005, 1,689,700 were born in Spain. Of those, 1,512,752 in the Canary Islands themselves - 1,481,519 of whom were born in the same province where they currently reside. Only 278,580 were born outside the country.
Canarias triplica la cifra de extranjeros en 5 años y en Santiago del Teide son ya el 51,6%
