Demographic features of the population of Romania include population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations, and other aspects of the population.

About 89.3% of the people of Romania are ethnic Romanians (as per 2021 census), whose native language, Romanian, is an Eastern Romance language, descended from Latin (more specifically from Vulgar Latin) with some Slavic, French, Turkish, German, Hungarian, Greek and Italian borrowings.

Romanians are by far the most numerous group of speakers of an Eastern Romance language today. It has been said that they constitute "an island of Latinity"See, for example, in Eastern Europe, surrounded on all sides either by Slavic peoples (namely South Slavic and East Slavic peoples) or by the Hungarians. The Hungarian minority in Romania constitutes the country's largest minority, or as much as 6.0 per cent of the entire population. With a population of about 19,054,267 people in 2022, Romania received 989,357 Ukrainian refugees on 27 May 2022, according to the United Nations (UN).

The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine that began on 24 February 2022 triggered a major refugee crisis in Europe. In connection with the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, as part of the Russian-Ukrainian war, by 15 May 2022, more than 6,223,821 Ukrainian refugees left the territory of Ukraine, moving to the countries closest to the west of Ukraine, of which more than 188,270 people fled to neighbouring Romania.

Population evolution

Romania's population has declined steadily in recent decades, from a peak of 23.2 million in 1990 to 19.12 million in 2021. Among the causes of population decline are high mortality, a low fertility rate since 1990, and tremendous levels of emigration.

In 1990, Romania's population was estimated at 23.21 million. Between 1990 and 2006, the estimated population loss exceeded 1.5 million, though the actual figure is likely higher due to the surge in labor migration after 2001 and the tendency of some migrants to settle permanently in their host countries.

Sources give varied estimates for Romania's historical population. The National Institute for Research and Development in Informatics (NIRDI) gives the following numbers (the figure for 2020 was provided by the National Institute of Statistics – INS):

Note: Crude migration change (per 1000) is a trend analysis, an extrapolation based average population change (current year minus previous) minus natural change of the current year (see table vital statistics). As average population is an estimate of the population in the middle of the year and not end of the year.

Ethnic groups

Slightly more than 10% of the population of Romania is formed of minorities in Romania. The principal minorities are Hungarians and Roma, although other smaller ethnic groups exist too. Before World War II, minorities represented more than 28% of the total population. During the war that percentage was halved, largely by the loss of the border areas of Bessarabia and northern Bukovina (to the former Soviet Union, now Moldova and Ukraine) and southern Dobrudja (to Bulgaria). Two-thirds of the ethnic German population either left or were deported after World War II, a period that was followed by decades of relatively regular (by communist standards) migration. During the interwar period in Romania, the total number of ethnic Germans amounted to as much as 786,000 (according to some sources and estimates dating to 1939),Gerhard Reichning (1995), , Part 1, Bonn, p. 17Federal Statistical Office of West Germany (1958). . . Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. p. 46 a figure which had subsequently fallen to circa 36,000 as of 2011 in contemporary Romania. One reason for the decline of Romanian Germans is that after the Romanian Revolution there has been a mass migration of Transylvania Saxons to Germany, in what was described by Simon Jenkins in the British daily newspaper The Guardian as "the most astonishing, and little reported, ethnic migration in modern Europe".

Of a total population of three quarters of a million Jews before World War II, about a third were killed during the Holocaust. Mass emigration, mostly to Israel and United States, has reduced the surviving Jewish community to less than 6,000 in 2002 (it is estimated that the real numbers could be 3–4 times higher)., B'nai B'rith International and Federația Comunitatii Evreiesti din România. Accessed 4 December 2006.

Hungarians (Magyars; especially in Harghita, Covasna, and Mureș counties) and Roma are the principal minorities, with a declining German population (Banat Swabians in Timiș; Transylvanian Saxons in Sibiu, Brașov and elsewhere), and smaller numbers of Czechs, Slovaks, Serbs, Croats, and Banat Bulgarians (in Banat), Ukrainians (especially in Maramureș and Bukovina), Greeks (especially in Brăila and Constanța), Turks and Tatars (mainly in Constanța), Armenians, Russians (Lipovans, Old Believers in Tulcea), Jews and others. Since the Romanian Revolution of 1989, Bucharest and other cities have again become increasingly cosmopolitan, including identifiable presences from outside the EU (Chinese, Turks, Moldovans, Syrians, Iraqis, Africans) as well as from the EU (French, Italians, Germans from Germany, British, Greeks). In Romania, there are also guest workers from countries such as Vietnam and Nepal.

Minority populations are greatest in Transylvania and the Banat, areas in the north and west of the country, which were part of the Kingdom of Hungary (after 1867 Austria-Hungary) until the end of World War I. Even before the union with Romania, ethnic Romanians comprised the overall majority in Transylvania. However, ethnic Hungarians and Germans were the dominant urban population until relatively recently, while Hungarians still constitute the majority in Harghita and Covasna counties.

The Roma constitute one of Romania's largest minorities. According to the 2011 Romanian census, they number 621,573 people or 3.08% of the total population, being the second-largest ethnic minority in Romania after Hungarians, with significant populations in Mureș (8.9%) and Călărași (7,47%) counties. There are different estimates about the size of the total population of people with Roma ancestry in Romania because a lot of people of Roma descent do not declare themselves as Roma. The number of the Roma is usually underestimated in official statistics and may represent 5–11% of Romania's population.

In 2007, the Council of Europe (CoE) estimated that approximately 1.85 million Roma lived in Romania,"Roma and Travellers". Council of Europe. based on an average between the lowest estimate (1.2 to 2.2 million peopleCouncil of Europe, doc. GT-ROMS(2003)9-prov. (restricted), 17 September 2003.) and the highest estimate (1.8 to 2.5 million peopleLiégeois, Jean-Pierre (1994). Roma, Gypsies, Travellers, p. 34.) with a maximum percentage of 12%, available at the time; the highest estimate, generated for the year 1991 and originating from a Securitate report, is considered unreliable, and Romanian post-communist censuses have consistently produced far lower figures. The CoE's average estimate is equivalent to 8.32% of the population, a figure difficult to verify due to the mobility of Romani and the reluctance of some to disclose their ethnicity.

After the Hungarians and the Roma, the Ukrainians of Romania are the third-largest minority. According to the 2011 Romanian census they number 51,703 people, making up 0.3% of the total population."Comunicat de presă privind rezultatele provizorii ale Recensământului Populației și Locuințelor – 2011" . . 2011 census. Accessed February 2, 2012. Ukrainians mainly live in northern Romania, in areas close to the Ukrainian border. Over 60% of all Romanian Ukrainians live in Maramureș County (where they make up 6.77% of the population).

Censuses in Romania

+ Evolution of Romania's population, 1859–1899 Leonida Colescu, director of Romanian Statistics Service between 1899–1922, discovered that the number of people was overestimated in the census conducted in 1859–1860 and calculated that the real figure was 3,864,848 people. Year Population 1859–60 3,864,848−4,424,961 1884 4,648,123 1889 5,038,342 1894 5,406,249 1899 5,956,690

+ Population of Romania by ethnic group in 1899 Ethnicity Number % Romanians 92.15 Hungarians 1.82 Germans 0.13 Austrians – Russians 0.08 Bulgarians 0.13 Turks 0.40 Serbs 0.07 Greeks 0.34 Italians 0.15 Foreigners without protection 4.68 Others 0.00 Unknown 0.00 Total 5,956,690

+ Population of Romania by ethnic group in 1912 Ethnicity Number % Romanians 93.47 Hungarians 0.96 Germans 0.11 Austrians 0.63 Russians 0.06 Bulgarians 0.16 Turks 0.47 Serbs 0.06 Greeks 0.24 Italians 0.15 Foreigners without protection 3.63 Others 0.01 Unknown 0.01 Total 7,234,920

+ Population of Romania by ethnic group in 1930 Ethnicity Number % Romanians 12,981,324 71.9 Hungarians 1,425,507 7.9 Germans 745,421 4.1 Jews 728,115 4.0 Ruthenians and Ukrainians 582,115 3.2 Russians 409,150 2.3 Bulgarians 366,384 2.0 Roma (Gypsies) 262,501 1.5 Turks 154,772 0.9 Gagauzians 105,750 0.6 Czechs and Slovaks 51,842 0.3 Serbs, Croats and Slovenes 51,062 0.3 Poles 48,310 0.3 Greeks 26,495 0.2 Tatars 22,141 0.1 Armenians 15,544 <0.1 Hutsuls 12,456 <0.1 Albanians 4,670 <0.1 Others 56,355 0.3 Undeclared 7,114 <0.1 Total 18,057,028 100.0

+ Population of Romania by ethnic group, 1948–2021 Ethnicgroup census 19481 census 19562 census 19663 census 19774 census 19925 census 20026 census 20117 census 20218 Number % Number % Number % Number % Number % Number % Number % %* Number % %* Romanians 13,597,613 85.7 14,996,114 85.7 16,746,510 87.7 18,999,565 88.1 89.5 19,399,597 89.5 16,792,868 83.588.9 14,801,442 77.789.3 Hungarians 1,499,851 9.4 1,587,675 9.1 1,619,592 8.5 1,713,928 7.9 1,624,959 7.1 1,431,807 6.6 1,227,623 6.16.51,002,151 5.36.0 Roma (Gypsies) 53,425 0.3 104,216 0.6 64,197 0.3 227,398 1.05 401,087 1.8 535,140 2.5 621,573 3.13.3 569,477 3.03.4 Ukrainians 37,582 0.2 60,479 0.4 54,705 0.3 55,510 0.3 65,764 0.3 61,098 0.3 50,920 0.30.345,835 0.30.3 Germans 343,913 2.2 384,708 2.2 382,595 2.0 359,109 1.6 119,462 0.5 59,764 0.3 36,042 0.20.2 22,907 0.10.1 Turks 28,782 0.2 14,329 0.2 18,040 0.1 23,422 0.1 29,832 0.1 32,098 0.2 27,698 0.10.1 20,9450.10.1 Russians 39,332 0.2 38,731 0.2 39,483 0.2 21,206 0.2 7,983 0.1 35,791 0.2 23,864 0.10.1 19,3940.10.1 Lipovans 11,090 0.1 30,623 0.2 Tatars 23,369 0.1 24,596 0.118,1560.10.1 Serbs 45,447 0.3 46,517 0.3 44,236 0.3 34,429 0.2 29,408 0.1 22,561 0.118,0760.10.112,0260.00.1 Croats 7,500 0.0 4,085 0.0 6,807 0.05,4080.00.04,8420.00.0 Slovenes 175 0.0 Slovaks35,143 0.2 23,331 0.2 22,151 0.1 21,286 0.1 19,594 0.1 17,226 0.213,6540.10.110,2320.00.1 Czechs 11,821 0.0 9,978 0.0 7,683 0.0 5,797 0.0 3,941 0.02,4770.00.01,5760.00.0 Bulgarians 13,408 0.1 12,040 0.1 11,193 0.1 10,372 0.0 9,851 0.1 8,025 0.0 7,3360.00.05,9750.00.0 Greeks 8,696 0.1 11,166 0.0 9,088 0.0 6,262 0.0 3,940 0.0 6,472 0.03,6680.00.02,0860.00.0 Jews 138,795 0.9 146,264 0.8 42,888 0.2 24,667 0.1 8,955 0.0 5,785 0.0 3,2710.00.0 2,3780.00.0 Poles 6,753 0.0 7,627 0.0 5,860 0.0 4,641 0.0 4,232 0.0 3,559 0.0 2,5430.00.0 2,1370.00.0 Armenians 6,987 0.0 6,441 0.0 3,436 0.0 2,342 0.0 1,957 0.0 1,780 0.0 1,3610.00.0 1,2130.00.0 Macedonians 1,176 0.0 6,867 0.0 731 0.0 1,2640.00.0 1,0890.00.0 Csangos 1,266 0.0 1,5360.00.0 Aromanians 982 0.0 21,736 0.1 Others 15,897 0.1 17,522 0.1 6,990 <0.1 5,731 <0.1 9,368 <0.1 28,303 0.1 23,7410.10.1 25,0280.2 Undeclared 1,236,8106.14 2,484,92613.0 Total 15,872,624 17,489,450 19,103,163 21,559,910 22,810,035 21,680,974 20,121,641 19,053,815 1 The results of the 1948 census are according to language. 2 Source: 3 Source: 4 Source: 5 Source: 6 Source: 7 Source: 8 Source:%*: of those declared ethnicity

Vital statistics

Total fertility rate from 1850 to 1899