Population of El Salvador is 6 million

Salvadoran population from last 6 national census tallies

This year El Salvador conducted its first national census of the population since 2007.   Thousands of census takers  went door to door to compile a statistical picture of the country.   

Several results pop out.  For one, the population is smaller than the recent estimates.   Prior to the 2024 census, the population was estimated by various sources to be between 6.3 and 6.5 million people.  The actual count by the new census is 6.029 million people.  In the 2007 census, the population was 5.744 million.  Thus the population grew by just 5% or 285,000 over the last 17 years.  

The reasons the population could be lower than expected include lower birth rates in the country, higher mortality rates from violence and disease, and the impact of outward migration by persons seeking safety from violence or pursuing economic sustenance.

52.8% of the population is female and 47.2% male.

Perhaps the most notable change in the population is that the number of children and teenagers has declined sharply.   In 2007, children and teenagers totaled 2.55 million or 44% of the Salvadoran population.   In 2024, that group had shrunk by more than 800,000 to 1.75 million and now totals only 29% of the Salvadoran population.   Meanwhile those from 40-59 grew from 17 to 24% of the population and those 60 and older rose from 9-15% of the population.  

 This shift towards an older population has a number of impacts.  School enrollment has been steadily declining with fewer school age children. The number of people of working age, from 20-60, is the largest segment of the population.  But also increasing is the number of elderly in a country which offers very few resources other than family support for those no longer able to work.

This graphic from the report of the census helps visualize how the distribution of population by age has changed.

The largest population grouping belongs to those born in the ten years after the conclusion of El Salvador's civil war in 1992, El Salvador's own "baby boom."

The census report compiles many other statistics about life in El Salvador from the materials that houses are built from, the structure of families, and access to electricity, water and internet.  The report also tallies the growing number of households owning a variety of household goods and technology: