Census population
1, paragraph 236 of law no. 205 of 2017, amended by decree law no. 7 of 29 January 2024, converted into law no. 38 of 25 March 2024 establishes that Istat publishes on an annual basis on its institutional website the data related to the population count at regional, provincial and municipal level and the results of the permanent population census referred to the previous year, accompanied by the related calculation methodology. The data are taken as reference for the purposes of applying the provisions of law and regulations which refer to the amount of the population.
The official figure from the Permanent Population and Housing Census to be taken as reference for provisions of laws and regulations is that of the 31.12.2022, the latest data available to date, equal to 58,997,201 people usually resident in Italian municipalities.
Detailed data by municipality are available in the following Istat databases:
- Permanent census of population and housing, under the heading “View by territory”
- Thematic Data Warehouse, under the left menu item “Population and housing census / Population”
- DEMO, where the data as of 1st of January 2023 is reported (equivalent to 31.12.2022)
The above mentioned law also establishes that, for the sole purpose of applying the provisions regarding electoral and referendum procedures, the official population figure is published in a Decree of the President of the Republic, issued every five years. This data is currently the one published in the Presidential Decree no. 53 of 3 March 2023, which reports the population as of 31 December 2021.
Please note that the figure reported in the graph on the Homepage refer to 1st of January 2024 (equivalent to 31.12.2023) and is preliminary, as it is an estimate that will be updated next December with the results of the Permanent Population and Housing Census. These preliminary data are available on the DEMO website in the sections “Main structural characteristics of the population” and “Population dynamics”.