Demographics
With 702,891 inhabitants in July 2011, Riga is the largest city in the Baltic States, though its population has decreased from just under 1 million in 1991. Notable causes include emigration and low birth rates. Some have estimated that the population may fall by as much as 50% by 2050. According to the 2011 census data, ethnic Latvians make up 46.33% of the population of Riga, with the percentage of ethnic Russians at 40.21%, Belarusians at 3.88%, Ukrainians at 3.45%, Poles at 1.85%, Lithuanians at 0.83% and other ethnicities at 3.46%. By comparison, 62.1% of Latvia's total population are ethnic Latvians, 26.9% are Russians, 3.3% are Belarusians, 2.2% are Ukrainians, 2.2% are Polish, 1.2% are Lithuanians and the remaining 2.1% are accounted for by other ethnicities.
Upon the restoration of Latvia's independence in 1991, Soviet era immigrants (and any of their offspring born before 1991) were not automatically granted Latvian citizenship because they had migrated to the territory of Latvia during the years of the Soviet occupation. The proportion of ethnic Latvians in Riga has increased from 36.5% in 1989 to 42.4% in 2010. In contrast the percentage of Russians has fallen from 47.3% to 40.7% in the same time period. Latvians overtook Russians as the largest ethnic group in 2006.
In 2005, 16.2% of the population were living under the poverty line, and the most vulnerable groups were children, young adults and senior citizens.
Read more about this topic: Riga