Israel’s Population Reaches Almost Eight Million

The Central Bureau of Statistics just released Israel’s population numbers which neared the eight million mark as the country readies to celebrate Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year.

Israel’s population, holding strong at 7,933,200 can be broken down into several segments. The Jewish majority now stands at 5,978,600 (75.36%) The total population number also includes 1,636,600 (20.62%) Arabs of which some are Bedouins and Druse, and nearly 318,000 (4%) being defined as “other". This last group includes non-Arab Christians and non-Jews who may have one Jewish grandparent.

In comparison to recent years, the Jewish growth rate remained steady at 1.8%. While the Arab population grew at rate of 2.4% it still continued a downward trend from the late 1990s when their population was building at a rate of 3.4%.

Geographically, the majority of Israelis continue to live in the centre of the country which includes nearly 49% of the Jewish population. However this trend seems to be on a slight decline as more people are finding varying reasons to live in the country’s periphery. Northern Israel continues to be highly concentrated by Arab populations where 60% primarily reside in the Galilee and Haifa areas.

Israel continues to benefit from Aliya, with 16,892 new olim in 2011, almost 1.5% more than the previous year.