BERLIN, June 30 (Xinhua) -- More than 10 million foreigners were registered in Germany in 2016, the highest number of people holding foreign-only citizenship since the country's Central Register of Foreigners (AZR) began in 1967, the Federal Statistical Office reported Friday.
The number of foreigners in Germany increased by 1.89 million (23.1 percent) in the years 2015 and 2016. This development is largely attributed to the large influx of immigrants in 2015 (1.54 million) and 2016 (482,300).
The surplus of births over deaths of the foreign population in 2015 and 2016 was 98,700.
Since the beginning of 2015, 229,800 foreigners were deleted from the register due to naturalization.
The number of foreigners from non-EU states has increased by 1.28 million since the beginning of 2015, compared to an increase of only 879,400 in the period between 2007 and 2014. Immigrants from Syria (519,700), Afghanistan (178,100) and Iraq (138,500) account for the high increase from 2014 to 2016 in particular.
The areas in which foreigners settled in German states remained more or less the same over the past 10 years. In 2016, most foreigners lived in North-Rhine Westphalia (2.51 million) and the least in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Thuringia (69,000 and 91,300).
As of 2016, Germany had a population of around 82.8 million, according to statistical office estimates. Non-German EU nationals accounted for 4.28 million, while foreigners from non-EU countries accounted for 5.76 million.
