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POPULATION] The population of the empire has thus increased, since 1871, by 19,582,486 or 47.6%. The increase of population during 1895–1900 was greatest in Hamburg, Bremen, Lübeck, Saxony, Prussia and Baden, and least in Mecklenburg-Strelitz and Waldeck. Of the total population in 1900, 54.3% was urban (i.e. living in towns of 2000 inhabitants and above), leaving 45.7% to be classified as rural. On the 1st of December 1905, of the total population 29,884,681 were males and 30,756,597 females; and it is noticeable that the male population shows of late years a larger relative increase than the female, the male population having in five years increased by 2,147,434 and the female by only 2,126,666. The greater increase in the male population is attributable to diminished emigration and to the large increase in immigrants, who are mostly males. In 1905, 485,906 marriages were contracted in Germany, being at the rate of 8.0 per thousand inhabitants. In the same year the total number of births was 2,048,453. Of these, 61,300 were stillborn and 174,494 illegitimate, being at the rate, respectively, of 3% and 8.5% of the total. Illegitimacy is highest in Bavaria (about 15%), Berlin (14%), and over 12% in Saxony, Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Saxe-Meiningen. It is lowest in the Rhine Province and Westphalia (3.9 and 2.6 respectively). Divorce is steadily on the increase, being in 1904, 11.1 per 10,000 marriages, as against 8.1, 8.1, 9.3 and 10.1 for the four preceding years. The average deaths for the years 1901–1905 amounted to 1,227,903; the rate was thus 20.2 per thousand inhabitants, but the death-rate has materially decreased, the total number of deaths in 1907 standing at 1,178,349; the births for the same year were 2,060,974. In connexion with suicides, it is interesting to observe that the highest rates prevail in some of the smaller and more prosperous states of the empire—for example, in Saxe-Weimar, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and Saxe-Altenburg (on a three years’ average of figures), while the Roman Catholic country Bavaria, and the impoverished Prussian province of Posen show the most favourable statistics. For Prussia the rate is 20, and for Saxony it is as high as 31 per 100,000 inhabitants. The large cities, notably Berlin, Hamburg, Breslau and Dresden, show, however, relatively the largest proportion.

In 1900 the German-speaking population of the empire amounted to 51,883,131. Of the inhabitants speaking other languages there were: Polish, 3,086,489; French (mostly in Lorraine), 211,679; Masurian, 142,049; Danish, 141,061; Lithuanian, 106,305; Cassubian, 100,213; Wendish, 93,032; Dutch, 80,361; Italian, 65,961; Moravian, 64,382; Czech, 43,016; Frisian, 20,677; English, 20,217; Walloon, 11,841. In 1905 there were resident within the empire 1,028,560 subjects of foreign states, as compared with 778,698 in 1900. Of these 17,293 were subjects of Great Britain and Ireland, 17,184 of the United States of America and 20,584 of France. The bulk of the other foreigners residing in the country belonged to countries lying contiguous, such as Austria, which claimed nearly the half, Russia and Italy.

Languages.—The German-speaking nations in their various branches and dialects, if we include the Dutch and the Walloons, extend in a compact mass along the shores of the Baltic and of the North Sea, from Memel in the east to a point between Gravelines and Calais near the Straits of Dover. On this northern line the Germans come in contact with the Danes who inhabit the northern parts of Schleswig within the limits of the German empire. A line from Flensburg south-westward to Joldelund and thence northwestward to Hoyer will nearly give the boundary between the two idioms. The German-French frontier traverses Belgium from west to east, touching the towns of St Omer, Courtrai and Maastricht. Near Eupen, south of Aix-la-Chapelle, it turns southward, and near Arlon south-east as far as the crest of the Vosges mountains, which it follows up to Belfort, traversing there the watershed of the Rhine and the Doubs. In the Swiss territory the line of demarcation passes through Bienne, Fribourg, Saanen, Leuk and Monte Rosa. In the south the Germans come into contact with Rhaeto-Romans and Italians, the former inhabiting the valley of the Vorder-Rhein and the Engadine, while the latter have settled on the southern slopes of the Alps, and are continually advancing up the valley of the Adige. Carinthia and Styria are inhabited by German people, except the valley of the Drave towards Klagenfurt. Their eastern neighbours there are first the Magyars, then the northern Slavs and the Poles. The whole eastern frontier is very much broken, and cannot be described in a few words. Besides detached German colonies in Hungary proper, there is a considerable and compact German (Saxon) population in Transylvania. The river March is the frontier north of the Danube from Pressburg as far as Brünn, to the north of which the German regions begin near Olmütz, the interior of Bohemia and Moravia being occupied by Czechs and Moravians. In these countries the Slav language has been steadily superseding the German. In the Prussian provinces of Silesia and Posen the eastern parts are mixed territories, the German language progressing very slowly among the Poles. In Bromberg and Thorn, in the valley of the Vistula, German is prevalent. In West Prussia some parts of the interior, and in East Prussia a small region along the Russian frontier, are occupied by Poles (Cassubians in West Prussia, Masurians in East Prussia). The total number of German-speaking people, within the boundaries wherein they constitute the compact mass of the population, may be estimated, if the Dutch and Walloons be included, at 65 millions.

The geographical limits of the German language thus do not quite coincide with the German frontiers. The empire contains about 3 millions of persons who do not make use of German in everyday life, not counting the resident foreigners.

Apart from the foreigners above mentioned, German subjects speaking a tongue other than German are found only in Prussia, Saxony and Alsace-Lorraine. The following table shows roughly the distribution of German-speaking people in the world outside the German empire:—

According to the census of the 1st of December 1900 there were 51,634,757 persons speaking commonly one language and 248,374 speaking two languages. In the kingdom of Saxony, according to the census of 1900, there were 48,000 Wends, mostly in Lusatia. With respect to Alsace-Lorraine, detailed estimates (but no census) gave the number of French in the territory of Lorraine at about 170,000, and in that of Alsace at about 46,000.

The Poles have increased very much, owing to a greater surplus of births than in the case of the German people in the eastern provinces of Prussia, to immigration from Russia, and to the Polonization of many Germans through clerical and other influences (see History). The Poles are in the majority in upper Silesia (Government district of Oppeln; 55%) and the province of Posen (60%). They are numerous in West Prussia (34%) and East Prussia (14%).

The Wends are decreasing in number, as are also the Lithuanians on the eastern border of East Prussia, Czechs are only found in Silesia on the confines of Bohemia.

Russians flocked to Germany in thousands after the Russo-Japanese War and the insurrections in Russia, and the figures given for 1900 had been doubled in 1907. Males preponderate among the various nationalities, with the exception of the British, the larger proportion of whom are females either in domestic service or engaged in tuition.

Chief Towns.—According to the results of the census of the 1st of December 1905 there were within the empire 41 towns with populations exceeding 100,000, viz.:—