I love maps. Ever since I was a little boy I have loved looking at maps of the world, at historical maps, at typographical maps. In short, it is fitting that I write for a website entitled "Mercatornet". That is why I am so excited to present the above map to you, dear readers. (Go here for a larger, expanable version of it.)
As I do not read German, I had some help in interpreting it from CityMetric. Apparently, this map was prepared by BBSR (the Federal Institute for Research on Building, Urban Affairs and Spatial Development) and it depicts the population changes in each European municipality in the decade 2001-2011. The parts of the map marked pink and red show population growth: light pink shows population growth of up to 1%, darker pink 1-2% and dark red over 2%. Conversely, the blue areas are in population decline: the dark blue representing population decline of over 2%. The map shows some quite clear trends: population decline in eastern and south-eastern countries; population growth in the West. It also shows the strong growth of cities, in eastern Europe these are the only growth areas. Look also at the pallor of Germany - slow growth or no growth in the west of the country, slow decline in the east. It will be fascinating to see a comparable map for 2011-2021. Unless something radically changes, I'd imagine that we will see more blue and less red.