Immigrants in Iceland numbered 50,727 as of January 1, 2019, or 14.1% of the population. This represents a significant increase from the previous year’s figure of 12.6%. The number of second-generation immigrants also rose from 4,861 in 2018 to 5,263 in 2019. The data comes from Statistics Iceland.
People born in Poland were the largest group of immigrants in 2019, as in previous years, numbering 19,172 as of January 1 of this year, or 38.1% of the total immigrant population. The second largest group were immigrants born in Lithuania (2,884), followed by those born in the Philippines (1,968).
As of January 1, 2019, 63.6% of first- and second-generation immigrants were living in the Reykjavík capital region. The region with the highest proportion of immigrants was, however, the Southwest, with 26.6% of its residents being first- or second-generation immigrants. The Westfjords came second, with just under 20% of residents falling into these categories.
Statistics Iceland defines an immigrant as an individual born abroad with both parents and all grandparents also foreign born. A second-generation immigrant is born in Iceland to immigrant parents. A person with foreign background has one parent of foreign origin.
The full report is available in English on Statistics Iceland’s website.
