Bulgaria’s population decreased further last year, maintaining the rate of decline from 2012, official figures from the National Statistical Institute (NSI) have revealed.

At the end of last year, Bulgaria’s population totalled 7.245m, down 0.5% (36,225) compared to a year earlier. Bulgarians accounted for just 1.4% of the population of the European Union at the end of 2013.

Last year’s drop in population numbers extended the decline from 7.364m recorded in the 2011 census. In 2012, Bulgaria’s population decreased by 0.6% to 7.282m. That equates to a drop of 119,000 in the past two years.

Those aged 65 or more continues to rise in Bulgaria also, and now accounts for 1.417m, or 19.6% of the total population.

Bulgaria’s population has steadily decreased since peaking at 8.865m in 1980. The country has experienced a dramatic drop in population numbers since the 1990s when economic collapse prompted emigration on a large scale. Some 1.2m people, mostly younger adults, had left the country for good by 2005, and the fertility rate is well below the replacement rate.