In the past nine years, Serbia lost 377,000 inhabitants, or around five percent of its total population, with eastern and southern parts of the country hardest hit, according to initial results of the latest census published on Nov. 15.

The director of the Serbian Statistics Office, Dragan Vukmirovic, said that the total population of Serbia was 7,120,666, down from 7,498,001 in the last census. He added that the reduction was a result of negative population growth and a boycott by Albanians in southern Serbia. Population growth was registered in 22 municipalities, but 146 municipalities saw drops.

According to Vukmirovic, the Belgrade region was the only one in the country to have registered an increase in the population of around 63,000, or four percent. The region of Vojvodina has 5.7 percent fewer inhabitants than in 2002, the region of Sumadija and Western Serbia around 5.8 percent fewer, while the population of southern and eastern Serbia dropped by 11.5 percent.

Vukmirovic said that there were 17 towns in Serbia with populations of more than 50,000, and which accounted for 36 percent of the total population. At the same time, the number of towns with zero population has increased from seven to nine. The number of settlements with less than 100 inhabitants has grown from 707 to 975.

The total number of Serbian citizens living abroad is somewhat higher than 294,000, while the number of households is a little under 250,000.