30.5 million people live in Ukraine-controlled territory, Forbes reports. INFOGRAPHICS
About 30.5 million people live in territory controlled by the Ukrainian government, with several million more remaining in temporarily occupied areas.
This is according to new estimates by Forbes Ukraine’s analytical team, Censor.NET reports.
The journalists used the government’s 2019 "mini-census," which put the population at 37.3 million, as a baseline. To update the estimate, they applied four methods: the water-use method, a combined water-consumption method, a birth-rate method, and a classic residual estimate.
Forbes notes that each method comes with a margin of error. In particular, the residual method may miss people who crossed the border without registration and may misestimate how many citizens remain in occupied territory.
The results produced a range of 28 to 31.4 million people. The final integrated estimate is 30.5 million living in government-controlled areas. Total population within Ukraine’s internationally recognized borders is estimated at 35–35.5 million — roughly comparable to the 1920s and only about 2 million more than after World War II.
Analysts also say the country’s demographic center has shifted 130–140 km west. The main destinations for internal forced migration have been Kyiv, Dnipropetrovsk and Lviv regions.
