Historic Demography of the Island
 

   If it is a domain where the rigour should be acceptable, it is well the one of the demography so often manhandled by those who profess to give their opinion onto everything and especially what is foreign to them. The same, on the occasion of inevitably deep reflections, claim to talk about the human future, the wars, the future of nations, colonies or even simply notion of life expectation, cornerstone of the demographic reasoning, without noticing that they are handling a delicate statistical object. The demographic domain is thus a field of the knowledge which incites inquiring minds but which adduce the prigs to say anything. It is well of it that it is in question in our Corsican cases, where more than somewhere else, the dead vote. That we judge it!

   Let us take an example. I like enough that concerning the misdeeds of the French occupation compared with the situation of the nearby islands, and where you will be told that Sardinia and Sicily are very populated. That is very true, and that it is the fruit of two centuries of fastening with Italy, as which the irredentism is never very far. Hey what, you wonder?

   But, let us see, do not come out that Corsica was in the 18th century the densest region of Europe; it is France cruel mother who, with subsidies and public jobs, prevented Corsica to develop and enticed outside Corsica its most ardent sons, wherever from the depopulation we notice. Here you are shaken. And nevertheless. Let us make a quite small really very simple demographic reasoning: The kingdom of France reckoned as périssait la patrie [died the homeland] (Bonaparte dixit, speaking about Ponte Novo) 27 million subjects for a territory slightly smaller than today (approximately 520000 km2) i.e. a 52 hab / km² density . A denser Corsica owes present a density at least equal to this figure for 8681 km², i.e. a population of more than 450000 souls, now, in 1800, its population reached only the level of 160000 inhabitants! France, on average, was thus three times as dense as Corsica, what supposes that certain number of these provinces was it also. Is it necessary to look at the other regions of Europe.

   If we leave all the commonplaces of the Corsican debate, it remains to work on acceptable statistical series, and it is all the question because figures in Corsica have been handled for electoral reasons for a century, to the point that the INSEE(NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR STATISTICS AND ECONOMIC STUDIES) eventually makes a commitment on reliable figures only as from 1982 and mentions in its publications of figures reconstituted figures instead of stemming from censuses at least till the beginning of the Sixties. We tried to see clear there and we propose as support of our various analyses of the series established by taking into account diverse evaluations the references of which are given and commented on.

   A first correction can be made by comparing the present population, identified as such in the censuses, and of which the systematic gap with regard to the legal population from 1921 leads to doubt the validity. Paul Damiani makes in 1973 a correction this way by taking into account the evolutions on the long term of the migratory and natural sales. This first statistical revision is accepted by the INSEE(NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR STATISTICS AND ECONOMIC STUDIES) and comes to confirm the other evaluations previous as those of Emile Kolodny in 1962 which already brought to light the notion of population present on the island. A more pushed evaluation brings him to criticize this notion which sticks sometimes too closely on the legal censuses and on their erring ways, in particular the rise from 1921 till 1936 which he follows during the first years. It seems that its estimation "with the criterion of presence" is satisfactory in the beginning of century and more critical than that of Paul Damiani. On the other hand, the fall which he proposes as from 1921 is very (too much?) pronounced. The evaluation of Janine Renucci which follows a close method ends in less dramatic results from 1926 and seems more reasonable. To be complete about the past I added the results of the François Casta's study (the figures of 1740 and 1758 were worked out again on the basis of homes and considering a reduced list of ten places with regard to the censuses of the inhabitants. Finally, as regards 1726s in 1794, the data of diverse censuses were added (referenced in particular in Dupâquier, cit. Langlois, Annales de démographie historiques, 1976, etc.).

   I refused to choose, and even less to try to propose a "synthetic" curve which would have had no rigorous justification, for lack of indisputable elements to opt for a plan or the other one according to eras. The table and the graph thus present all the curves. If we put aside the legal censuses of the 20th century which reflect more the image which Corsican wanted to give of themselves that the reality, all the plans gives an idea of the rather likely whole reality, over the studied three centuries.

  During the 18th century, all the censuses are held on the same trend, whereas the François Casta's evaluations seem to make the curve of the censuses and the evaluations of Paul Damiani joined themselves. On the other hand, during all the 19th century, all the evaluations and censuses propose an unanimous demographic image of Corsica. It is in the 20th century and until the 1982 census that the debate on the enumeration takes all its meanings.

Table of populations evaluation

Dates	Legal census	Damiani	Renucci	Kolodny	Kolodny (presence)	CNRS (Casta)*	Dupâquier, Langlois, Others
1726							119284
1729						107219
1730	114000
1738							116053
1739	113000
1740	117000					112460	120389
1750	122000						124112
1758						115014
1760	125000	100000
1769							123480
1770	130000	110000				117079	130286
1780	142000	120000
1786	145000	125000
1787						130289
1791							146530
1790	154000	140000
1794							150658
1800	164000	157000
1801							163896
1805	166000	177000
1810	170000	174000
1815	168000	176000
1820	180000	175000
1825	190000	185000
1830	195000	195000
1835	209000	209000
1840	215000	215000
1845	230000	230000
1850	235000	235000
1855	240000	237000		238500
1860	248000	254000		250000
1865	257000	260000		255000
1872	252000	258000		257000
1876	262701	262701		259400
1881	273000	273000	273000	270000	273000
1891	289000	289000	270000	280500	284709
1901	295600	295600	260000	277200	278072
1906	291200	290000	255000	271200	272400
1911	288820	290000	250000	264400	270218
1921	281959	282000	230000	234900	254958
1926	289900	271400	225000	216800	256000
1931	297200	260700	215000	201500	270921
1936	322900	237400	205000	188400	273801
1946	267900	224600	185000	181200	233232
1954	247000	191500	175000	172000	247000
1962	275500	176160	175000	168000
1968	269800	208780	185000
1975	289800	227425
1982	240178	240178
1990	249729
1999	260149
2005	275000

Graph



Télécharger fichier excel 

Specification Men/Women and population pyramid
On the base of  age group  p. 1000 inhabitants (sources Atlas ethno-historique & recensement 1911, imprimerie nationale 1912 et 1913)


1872 census                                                        1901 census                      
     

1906 census

1999 census                                                         1911 census
(last five years census)                                                           compared with France

     

Ages	1911 Corsica M	1911 Corsica W	1911 France M	1911 France W	1906 Corsica M	1906 Corsica W	1901 Corsica M	1901 Corsica W
less 20	42%	41%	35%	33%	44%	43%	43%	43%
more 50	21%	21%	22%	24%	20%	19%	20%	19%
adults	36%	39%	44%	43%	36%	38%	37%	38%
20 to 40	26%	28%	31%	30%	26%	27%	27%	27%
40 to 50	11%	11%	13%	13%	11%	11%	11%	11%

Women for 1000 Men	1891	1901	1911
France	1035	1033	1014
Corsica	1010	999	1023

Mouvements naturels et migratoires récents

	Births	Décès	Solde naturel	Solde migratoire
1962 - 1968 1968 – 1975 1975 – 1982 1982 – 1990 1990 - 1999 1999 - 2003	17162 19415 18252 23440 25411 11034	14187 17302 18365 21868 24618 10913	+ 2975 + 2113 - 113 + 1572 + 793 + 121	+ 21431 + 18181 + 14729 + 8621 + 9032 nd

P_POPA – Fiche profil Evolution démographique 1962-1999, INSEE 2006

Groups	Immigrants	Emigrants
Actifs Unemployed less than 15 years Pupils-Students Retired Others non-working	35 % 10 % 20 % 6 % 16 % 13 %	35 % 9 % 21 % 17 % 8 % 10 %

Economie corse n° 95,  1999 data

Born in…	Immigrants	Emigrants
Corsica Mainland Overseas Foreign countries	7266 21655 264 3072	6161 13604 251 3514

Economie corse n° 95, 1999 data

Origine des immigrants de plus de 15 ans	All	Born in Corsica
Working people Unemployed Former working Others non-working At school Army	11237 3203 5160 4064 2013 43	1529 368 2040 909 217 4

Economie corse n° 95,  1999 data


Compared density of the Mediterranean Isles

Let us review the legend of a more croudy Corsica than the Mediterranean islands, and than the sole French presence would have handicaped.

.

Corsica "drops out" only as from the 1911 census with regard to Sardinia, what invalidates the irredentist speech : the French presence in the 20th century does not have to be ashamed with a hypothetical Italian presence which has never taken place and of whom we can strictly guess nothing. Besides, Sicily, from his part, was dense already much more than Corsica and for a long time. Indeed, if from 1860, Sicily presents an already three times as high density, this one was of the order of 64 hab / km² after the napoleonic wars and the estimations of the historians retain an assumption of one million inhabitants in 1700, that is a 39 hab / km²  density while at the same moment Corsica shows a 14 hab / km² density, that is to say always a density representing a big third of that of Sicily. We shall note that the Cyprus island presents a profile comparable to that of Sardinia, nevertheless its density diverges from that of Corsica a little more late, after the first world war.

Sources

 
Abbé François Casta, Paroisses et communes de France, Corse, éd. CNRS 1993

Atlas ethno-historique, direction Ravis Giordani

Paul Damiani, le mouvement de la population corse de 1946 à 1969 et aperçus rétrospectifs depuis 1781, in Bulletin de la société des sciences historiques et naturelles de la Corse BSSHNC, 1973, Trim. 3 & 4

Economie corse, n° 25, avril 1983, INSEE

Emile Yerahmiel Kolodny, population urbaine de Corse, 1962

Janine Renucci, Corse traditionnelle et Corse nouvelle la géographie d’une île, 1974

INSEE, Tableau économie corse 2005

Economie corse, n° 95, avril 2001, INSEE

 

For the mediterranean isles, estimation following Kolodny and the Istat (itatlian statistical  institute)