THE AFRICAN COURIER. Reporting Africa and its Diaspora! The African Courier is an international magazine published in Germany to report on Africa and the Diaspora African experience. The first issue of the bimonthly magazine appeared on the newsstands on 15 February 1998. The African Courier is a communication forum for European-African political, economic and cultural exchanges, and a voice for Africa in Europe.
Almost one third of the Hessian population has an immigration history, according to the State Statistical Office in Wiesbaden.
In 2022, 1.97 million inhabitants of Hesse, one of Germany’s 16 federal states, accounting for 31.3 per cent of all inhabitants have a migration background. As of 31 December 2022, 6.39 million people lived in the state, the largest population since statistical recording began in 1946.
After the pandemic-related lower migration movements in 2020 and 2021, around 312,500 people came to Hesse last year. Most of them (71.2 per cent) came from abroad: 170,000 people came from European countries, with more than 88,600 from Ukraine alone because of the Russian invasion of the country.
The highest proportion of inhabitants with an immigration history was in Frankfurt, the largest city in Hesse, with 47.9 percent of the population in 2022. “In the combined metropolitan area of the independent cities of Wiesbaden, Offenbach am Main and Darmstadt, their share of 46.0 per cent was also significantly above the Hessian average,” the report said.
Relatively the fewest people with an immigration background lived in the eastern Hessian districts of Fulda, Hersfeld-Rotenburg, Schwalm-Eder-Kreis and Werra-Meißner-Kreis: in all districts together, their share was 16.0 per cent.
Statisticians count people with an immigration history as either people who have immigrated to Germany themselves since 1950 (first generation) or their direct descendants (second generation), but only if both parents have come to the country since 1950.
Sola Jolaoso
