MADRID
RESIDENTS in the Balearic Islands coming from the United Kingdom, Germany and Morocco go to make up 34.7 percent of the regions's foreign community, a census carried out by the National Institute of Statistics (INE) at the beginning of the year and published yesterday confirmed.
The foreign population officially resident in the Balearics is now registered at 242'256, 0.1 percent (322) more than in 2010. The Islands continue to be the region of the country with the highest percentage of foreign residents, 21.8 percent of the total, says the INE.
The Institute claims that the majority of foreigners in the Balearics come from other parts of Europe, the largest national group being from Germany (36'674). In second place is Morocco with a resident population of 23'960 followed by the British with 23'697.
To a lesser extent, the Balearic Islands is also officially home to 17'566 Italians, 13'311 Romanians, 9'495 Bulgarians and 8'739 French.
In terms on non-European Union countries, high on the list of foreign residents are Latin American countries Ecuador (11'955) and Argentina (10'081); and from Asia a growing community of Chinese residents (4'382).
The total number of people living in the Balearic Islands at the beginning of this year, said the INE, was 1'112'712, a 0.6 percent (6'663) year-on-year increase. In Spain as a whole, the INE confirmed as part of the same census that there are 47'150'819 residents, a 0.3 percent increase in comparison with January 2010 (129'788). The number of foreigners during this period has remained very much the same, despite a slight drop (-1.75%) in the level of the non-EU community.
According to the INE census, 41'420'152 are Spanish nationals and the remainder of 5'730'667 foreigners goes to make up 12.2 percent of the total population of the country.