The increase in Cologne’s population increased by 1.45 percent from 2015 to 2016. 1,075,935 people lived in Cologne in 2016, in 2017 there were already 1,084,795 and by 2040 demographers expect the population to rise to over 1.2 million. The city is the big winner among the cities in the Rhineland, no other is growing as strongly as Cologne.
In the 1970s, Cologne was once a city of millions for a short time due to the incorporation of the neighbouring town of Wesselings, but this was spun off again, which reduced the number of inhabitants again. In 2010, Cologne again cracked the million-dollar mark, becoming Germany’s fourth city of millions after Berlin, Hamburg and Munich. In North Rhine-Westphalia, Cologne is the only city of millions and thus also the largest city without being the state capital.
The inhabitants of the city of Cologne are spread over an area of 405.02 km2, which means 2,656 people per square kilometer. Cologne was the first city in 1852 and has grown more than tenfold since then, as the current population shows.