| Population. | |
| 1876 | 36,905,788 |
| 1881 | 37,672,048 |
| 1886 | 38,218,903 |
| 1891 | 38,342,948 |
| 1896 | 38,517,975 |
| 1901 | 38,961,945 |
| 1906 | 39,252,245 |
Thus the rate of increase during the decade 1891-1901 was .16%, whereas during the same period the population of England increased 1.08%. The birth-rate markedly decreased during the 19th century; despite an increase of population between 1801 and 1901 amounting to 40%, the number of births in the former was 904,000, as against 857,000 in the latter year, the diminution being accompanied by a decrease in the annual number of deaths.[3] In the following table the decrease in births and deaths for the decennial periods during the thirty years ending 1900 are compared.
| Births. | ||||
| 1871-1880 | 935,000 | or | 25.4 | per 1000 |
| 1881-1890 | 909,000 | ” | 23.9 | ” |
| 1891-1900 | 853,000 | ” | 22.2 | ” |
| Deaths. | ||||
| 1871-1880 | 870,900 | or | 23.7 | per 1000 |
| 1881-1890 | 841,700 | ” | 22.1 | ” |
| 1891-1900 | 829,000 | ” | 21.5 | ” |
About two-thirds of the French departments, comprising a large proportion of those situated in mountainous districts and in the basin of the Garonne, where the birth-rate is especially feeble, show a decrease in population. Those which show an increase usually possess large centres of industry and are already thickly populated, e.g. Seine and Pas-de-Calais. In most departments the principal cause of decrease of population is the attraction of great centres. The average density of population in France is about 190 to the square mile, the tendency being for the large towns to increase at the expense of the small towns as well as the rural communities. In 1901 37% of the population lived in centres containing more than 2000 inhabitants, whereas in 1861 the proportion was 28%. Besides the industrial districts the most thickly populated regions include the coast of the department of Seine-Inférieure and Brittany, the wine-growing region of the Bordelais and the Riviera.[4]
In the quinquennial period 1901-1905, out of the total number of births the number of illegitimate births to every 1000 inhabitants was 2.0, as compared with 2.1 in the four preceding periods of like duration.
In 1906 the number of foreigners in France was 1,009,415 as compared with 1,027,491 in 1896 and 1,115,214 in 1886. The departments with the largest population of foreigners were Nord (191,678), in which there is a large proportion of Belgians; Bouches-du-Rhône (123,497), Alpes-Maritimes (93,554), Var (47,475), Italians being numerous in these three departments; Seine (153,647), Meurthe-et-Moselle (44,595), Pas-de-Calais (21,436) and Ardennes (21,401).
The following table gives the area in square miles of each of the eighty-seven departments with its population according to the census returns of 1886, 1896 and 1906:
The French census uses the commune as the basis of its returns, and employs the following classifications in respect to communal population: (1) Total communal population. (2) Population comptée à part, which includes soldiers and sailors, inmates of prisons, asylums, schools, members of religious communities, and workmen temporarily engaged in public works. (3) Total municipal population, i.e. communal population minus the population comptée à part. (4) Population municipale agglomérée au chef-lieu de la commune, which embraces the urban population as opposed to the rural population. The following tables, showing the growth of the largest towns in France, are drawn up on the basis of the fourth classification, which is used throughout this work in the articles on French towns, except where otherwise stated.
In 1906 there were in France twelve towns with a population of over 100,000 inhabitants. Their growth or decrease from 1886 to 1906 is shown in the following table: