That Barcelona is ciutat d’acollida we already knew and now a City Council report confirms it: 53.9% of the 1,702,814 inhabitants of Barcelona were born outside the city, the highest figure so far.
This is shown by the latest report of the City Council on the population of Barcelona according to place of birth and nationality, which reveals that, if in 2000 Barcelona had 74,169 residents born outside the city, in 2024 this figure has increased to 572,459 people.
Specifically, the data say that, of that 53.9% of people not born in Barcelona, 6.9% were born in the rest of Catalonia, 13.4% in the rest of Spain and 33.6% in other countries.
Barcelona in 180 nationalities
The report highlights the internationalization of the city. From 1997 to 2024, residents with foreign nationality have multiplied by 16: from 26,000 people registered in 1997 to the current 432,556 (plus a mysterious group of 305 people whose nationality is not known). At present, people with foreign nationality represent 25.4% of the total number of inhabitants of Barcelona.
Barcelona’s diversity is reflected in the presence of 180 different nationalities in the city. At the top of the list, for some years now, is the Italian community, with 50,052 people, a figure that includes both those born in Italy and Argentines with this nationality. In second place is the Colombian community, with 28,551 people registered in the Catalan capital.