17.8% of residents in Barcelona are foreigners. In absolute terms, this means a total of 288,675 people, according to the official data published by the Barcelona City Council for January, 2017.
The census of the Catalan capital indicates that the total population at that time was 1,625,137 inhabitants, of whom 1,336,462 (82.2%) were of Spanish nationality.
Between 2008 and 2017 the number of foreigners living in Barcelona has remained relatively stable, ranging from 294,918 in 2009 to 262,233 in 2015. In the last two years there has been a rebound of the foreign population, which has from 16.2% in 2015 to the aforementioned 17.8% last year.
Italians are the largest foreign community in Barcelona, with a total of 29,272 residents. They surpass in almost ten thousand people to the second country with more residents in Barcelona, China, which has 19,866 people living in the Catalan capital.
Pakistan is the third country with more residents in Barcelona: 19,285 in total, only a few hundred less than those of Chinese nationality. The fourth place in this ranking is again for a European country, France, with 14,717 inhabitants, while the fifth place is occupied by Morocco, with 12,827 residents.
Under 10,000 inhabitants are Bolivia, Colombia and the Philippines, which exceed the 9,000 residents in all three cases.
Of the fifteen countries with the largest number of residents in Barcelona, in the last year those that have experienced greater growth have been Honduras (19%), Colombia (14.2%), Russia (12.4%), Italy ( 8.4%), China and France (both with a 7.7% increase). On the other hand, the number of resident citizens of Bolivia (-2.3%) and Ecuador (-0.6%) was reduced.
