Spain's population hits 49.3M, driven by immigration

​​​​​​​By Senhan Bolelli

MADRID (AA) - Spain's population hit 49.3 million as of July 1 due to immigration, according to data Thursday from the National Statistics Institute (INE).

INE reported that compared to the previous year, the number of immigrants increased by 650,000.

Despite the rise, however, the proportion of immigrants in the population has fallen to 14.3%, due to more immigrants getting Spanish citizenship.

In 2005, Spain's population was 43.2 million, and during the past 20 years it has grown 13.9%, with immigration the sole contributing factor.

The regions with the highest number of immigrants are Andalusia at 8.6 million, Catalonia at 8.1 million, and Madrid with 7.1 million.