Half foreigners in Spain are from five countries 05/01/2007 00:00

5 January 2007

MADRID — Over half all the foreign population in Spain are from just five countries, according to figures revealed on Friday.

In order of the size of the population, they come from Morocco, Ecuador, Romania, Britain and Colombia.

There are officially 535,009 Moroccans, 399,585 Ecuadorians, 381,955 Romanians, 274,042 Britons and 238,582 Colombians.

But there are thought to be many thousand more who are not officially registered.

The Spanish daily ABC reported on Friday figures from the government showed the other main nationalities were Germans (150,157), Argentineans (135,961), Bolivians (132,444), Italians (115,443) and Chinese (98,097).

In terms of areas where these foreigners live, the Balearic and Canary Islands have the largest contingent of Germans, while the Valencia area has the biggest number of Britons.

Moroccans are the biggest foreign population in Andalucia and Catalonia, while in Madrid it was Ecuadorians.

Romanians and Colombians tended to live in the northern areas of La Rioja, Cantabria, the Basque Country and Aragon.

[Copyright EFE with Expatica]

Subject: Spanish news