Ukrainian refugees helped push German population up 1.3% last year

BERLIN (AP) — Official statistics in Germany show that large numbers of refugees from Ukraine fleeing Russia’s war fueled a 1.3% rise in the German population last year. That helped push up the number of inhabitants in the European Union’s most populous country to more than 84.4 million. The national statistics office said Tuesday that Germany’s population expanded by 1.12 million in 2022. That compared with an increase of just 0.1% or 82,000 people the previous year. All of Germany’s 16 states saw their populations increase. The biggest proportional increases were in Berlin and Hamburg. Germany’s two largest cities both saw rises of 2.1%.