The number of foreigners in Malaga has doubled in the past 5 years

Almost all municipalities in Malaga have increased their foreign population during the past five years in at least twice their numbers. Foreigners now represent more than a third of all residents in twelve municipalities.

The Costa del Sol in the province of Malaga has undergone a spectacular immigration, as shown by the latest figures from the municipal population corresponding to 2007, and published a few days ago by the Spanish National Institute of Statistics. Between 2002 and 2007, the number of immigrants has at least doubled in nearly all municipalities in the province of Malaga.

More foreigners have moved to the province in the last five years than during any other five-year period, except in cities that already had a high proportion of foreign population, such as Torremolinos, Marbella, Mijas or Torrox. In addition, almost half of all municipalities in the province have five times more foreigners than five years ago. One of the reasons for this sharp increase in foreign population are changes in the legal requirements that allow foreigners to come and live here legally.

According to Carmen Carvajal, a professor at the Faculty of Geography at the University of Malaga which conducted the study, there is no town today in the province of Malaga which doesn't have foreign residents.

The municipalities of the interior, such as Almáchar, Benalauría, El Borge, Júzcar, Parauta, Villanueva de Tapia and Pujerra, did not officially have any foreign resident in 2002, and now have dozens in each of them, with the exception of Pujerra, which has gain only one foreign resident since 2002. At the other extreme is the city of Malaga, which has 34481 foreigners, followed by Marbella, 29963, and Mijas, which has 24705 foreign residents.

The National Institute of Statistics report indicates that one out of every four foreigners in Malaga is British (56898), followed by Moroccans (21251), Argentinians, Germans and Italians.
With regard to foreigners who have come in the past five years, statistics show that more than half of them are Europeans, mainly from the European Union, followed by Moroccans and South Americans.