The population can decline or increase from one year to another, which often are the cause of economic reasons, health concerns, land exhaustion and environmental hazards. the Faroe Islands experienced a sharp decline in the population size in the middle of the 1990s. The main reason for this was an economic crisis involving negative growth and a steadily increasing unemployment rate. Not until 2003 was the population size the same in the Faroe Islands as in 1990. Down below you can see a stats from year 1986 to 2016. As you can see there is a big drop in the middle of the 1990s.

If we look at the current population of Mai 2016, we are peaking at around 49.300. This is an increase of 0.43 % (206 people) compared to population of the year before. If the number will increase in the same rate, we will reach the beautiful round number 50.000 in the very near future and which also will be the highest population ever in Faroe Islands.

The average number of children born per woman in 2015 is est. 2.37 and makes the Faroe Islands number 84 in the world, when we talk about total fertility rate. Total fertility rate is a more direct measure of the level of fertility than the crude birth rate, since it refers to births per woman. Well in short this means that the fertility rate is currently one of the highest in Europe.

The Faroe Islands also account for the highest life expectancy. The average life expectancy of men in the Faroe Islands is 80 years, while that of Danish men is 78 years, and that of men in Greenland is 73 years. Similarly, women in the Faroe Islands live, on average, until the age of 85, while Danish women live until the age of 82, and women in Greenland until the age of 73.