Population distribution

Place of residence and age-sex distribution

As at 31 December 2021, there are 1,331,824 people living in Estonia. This is 37,369 persons more than in the 2011 census, meaning that the population has increased by nearly 3% in ten years. The shares of men and women in the population are more balanced. In the 2011 census, men represented 46.4% of the population, whereas now their share is 47.6%.

The population of Estonia has grown but it has also aged. The distribution by age group reveals that the number of children aged 0–14 has slightly increased since the 2011 census. But the number of residents in retirement age has increased even more, while the working-age population continues to decrease.

The figure shows the changes in the size of these three age groups since the 1959 census.

Secondary place of residence

120,000 Estonians have a secondary place of residence

Nearly 120,000 people, or 9% of the population, had a secondary place of residence in addition to their usual residence, which can be in Estonia or abroad, but not in the same municipality as the usual place of residence. For the purposes of the census, secondary residence is the dwelling with which the person or members of his/her family were connected during the previous year but where they did not reside permanently. Owning another property does not automatically mean that a person has a secondary place of residence. 93,000 people had a secondary residence in Estonia and 27,000 had theirs abroad. Finland is the most common country of secondary residence, with more than half of all foreign second residences located there. Within Estonia, secondary residences are split roughly in half – they are either in the same county as the usual place of residence or in a different county. The highest proportion of people with a secondary residence is found in Võru county (11%). More men than women have a secondary place of residence – 10% and 8%, respectively. 2.9% of men and 1.2% of women have a secondary residence abroad.