Shrinking Cuba

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A stagnant birthrate and a mounting exodus of economic refugees dropped Cuba’s population for the second consecutive year in 2007, the National Statistics Office reported.

The Communist-ruled island hasn’t experienced that one-two punch of fewer people since the war that brought independence to Cuba in 1898.

Cuba’s birthrate was at its lowest level in a century last year at barely 10 per 1,000 inhabitants, easily outpaced by rising mortality and the departure of more than 31,000 legal and illegal immigrants to the United States alone.

The population suffered a net loss of almost 1,900, falling to 11,237,154, in what the statistics office predicted would be a trend that continues at least until 2025.

— Carol J. Williams in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba