More people live in apartments in Spain than in any other EU country, study finds

A recent Eurostat survey finds that 66.5% of the Spanish population live in apartments, way above the EU average.

A recent survey carried out by Eurostat – a Luxembourg-based Directorate-General of the European Commission – has found that Spain is overwhelmingly in pole position among European Union nations when it comes to the percentage of its population that lives in apartments rather than in houses, with some 66.5% occupying flats versus 33.1% residing in houses…

Interestingly, these figures are the reverse of what Eurostat data shows for neighbouring countries where, in France, for example, 30% live in apartments and 70% in houses, while the average for EU countries is 40% (apartments) and 60% (houses). When it comes to figures for the UK the difference is even more pronounced, with just 14.4% of the population residing in apartments and a huge 84.7% in houses.

Based on data for 2014, the Eurostat survey also found that the countries closest to the Spanish profile in terms of the percentages of their populations living in apartments are Latvia, Lithuania and Greece with 65.1%, 58.4% and 56.9% respectively.

Meanwhile, other figures from the study reveal that Spain remains predominantly a nation of homeowners, with a huge 78.8% owning the property they live in – which is 8.7% higher than the European average – and that while the EU average for rented housing stands at 29.9%, in Spain the figure is only 21.2%.