Population

The population of Riga on January, 2002 was 753,000. This is a decrease of 159,000 from the 1990 population level of 912,000, which is due mainly to the withdrawal of the Soviet presence after the break-up of the Soviet Union and a low birth rate. Even with this decrease, Riga is still one of the largest cities in the Baltic region.

Compared to the total population of Latvia 2.5 million, Riga is disproportionately large and constitutes approximately one third of Latvia's population. Together with the adjacent resort town of Jurmala and the surrounding County, the Riga region is the home for 40% or 1.03 million of Latvia's population. The reason for this population concentration in Riga and its surrounding area is the fact that Riga's hinterland of trade, service and manufacturing goes far beyond the borders of Latvia to include a service area potential of approximately 80 million people.

Of the total population, 58.8% are aged between 15 and 60, 17.1% are below employment age and 23.1% are of retirement age. The gender structure is 45.3% men and 54.7% women.

Riga is a truly international city: 41.2 % of the city residents are Latvians; 43.7 % are Russians; and 15 % are other nationalities, including Byelorussians, Ukrainians, Poles, Lithuanians, Estonians, Armenians, etc. The ethnic composition is substantially different in the countryside with 55% Latvians, 33% Russians and 12% others.

There were 332,000 households in Riga in 1999, 43.9% of them consisting of two or three persons; 22.1% of them consisted of four persons; 9.8% of five persons; and 24.2% were single person households. According to some estimates Riga has about 307,000 households at the present time.