Summary:
“There are less of us, as well as Slovaks, Hungarians, Montenegrins… there is more of the majority nation, but only in Vojvodina.”

Results from the Yugoslav 2002 census were recently released, and they show that the total population of the republic of Serbia has fallen, from 7,581,460 in 1991 to 7,498,001 last year. In central Serbia and in Vojvodina, there are 6.21 million Serbs, up from 6.06 million a decade ago.

Similarly, the 2001 Croatian census showed a marked rise in ethnic Croats, the result of population shifts during and after the wars of the 1990s. The Rusyn population there fell from 3,250 in 1991 to just 2,337; of those, 1,828 declared Rusyn their mother tongue.

The Rusyn population in Serbia fell to 15,905 from 17,795. Similarly, the Slovaks went from 65,363 to 59,021 and the Romanians from 37,818 to 34,576. The Hungarian population dropped by 40,000 people to 293,299.

On the other hand, certain other minority groups actually saw an increase. The number of Ukrainians rose from 4,957 to 5,354, along with the Roma (91,075 to 108,193) and Vlachs (15,675 to 40,054).

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