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1.6 million: What you should know about Zurich’s record population

The population of Zurich, already Switzerland’s most populous city and canton, has exceeded 1.6 million residents for the first time in history. But what do we know about them?

Published: 7 February 2024 15:58 CET

1.6 million: What you should know about Zurich’s record population

Zurich's population has reached a historic high. Photo: Pixabay

New statistics released on Wednesday by Zurich’s cantonal authorities shed light on the city’s record population.

Never before have so many people lived in the canton of Zurich: at the end of 2023, it counted 1,601,434 residents, the Directorate of Justice and Interior announced on Wednesday.

Compared to the previous year, around 24,000 more people now live in the canton’s 169 municipalities.

The biggest increase — two-thirds of the total growth — occurred in communities with more than 10,000 inhabitants.

They are namely Zurich, Winterthur, Regensdorf, Dübendorf, Wädenswil, Uster, Bülach and Adliswil.

But in terms of growth by percentage of the population rather than by absolute numbers, small communities gained the most residents. The top performers in this category are Uitikon (7.8 percent), Höri (5.9 percent) and Regensdorf (5.0 percent).

Immigration played a major role in the population boom

The influx of foreigners is the main reason for the growth spurt, the study indicates.

At the end of 2023, the number of foreign nationals living in Zurich was about 455,000 — an increase of 4.5 percent, and the highest growth rate in 13 years.

Foreigners now account for 28.4 percent of the population.

There did these people come from?

Most of them — 80 percent — came from Europe.

Almost two-thirds of the foreign population originate from an EU or EFTA state (Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein).

Among them, Germany and Italy represent by far the largest groups, with 87,500 and 60,200 people, respectively.

They are followed by people from Portugal, Spain and Kosovo.

The groups with the greatest increase in numbers in 2023 were those of Ukrainian (8,554), Spanish (1,319), Italian (1,216), German (957), and Polish (780) nationalities.

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Growth spurt: What Zurich needs to do to accommodate 2 million residents

At the end of 2023, over 1.6 million people lived in Zurich, Switzerland’s most populous canton.

But this number is far from static.

The population is continuing to grow — so much so, that it will reach the 2-million mark in the coming years, cantonal authorities said in a press release.

This means an increase of around 450,000 people within the next two decades — a 28-percent growth rate, which is “significantly higher than the Swiss average.”

The primary reason for this hike, accounting for 49 percent of the increase, is immigration, followed by births (44 percent) and, to a lesser degree (7 percent), people moving to Zurich from other Swiss regions

On one hand, this is good news because “it is evidence of the canton’s attractiveness and economic prosperity,” authorities pointed out.

On the other, however, this demographic evolution will create a number of new problems and exacerbate the already existing ones.

That is why “strategic decisions are needed on how to handle challenges facing various areas,” cantonal officials said.

‘Dealing with consequences’

With this ‘growth spurt,’ Zurich will experience many of the same challenges as Switzerland on the whole will, as demographers are expecting the country’s population to swell to 10 million (from the current 9 million) people in the coming years.

Just as the federal government has started to think about the best ways to prepare the country’s infrastructure for the growing numbers, Zurich’s authorities too will be “shaping this growth” and “dealing with its consequences.”

To achieve this goal, they have launched the ‘Growth 2050” project to begin in the summer, which will examine “which approach is most suitable for strategically addressing the challenges ahead,” according to the press release.

What exactly does this mean?

While the project’s findings will not be made public until 2027, authorities will have to ensure that Zurich’s infrastructure, such as housing, public transport, as well as school and healthcare systems, will not crumble under pressure, but be able to function optimally — from both the financial and practical perspectives — in the new context.

While all these areas are important, in Zurich’s case, housing appears to be a particular problem as more residents move into the canton.

With tens of thousands of foreign nationals having settled in Zurich in the past few years, for instance, affordable housing had become scarcer — a situation that has continued to deteriorate and is expected to grow worse as more residents continue to arrive in the future.

READ ALSO: Zurich hit by affordable housing shortage amid record-high immigration

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