预测:2050年英国将成欧洲人口最多国家

Britain will be the biggest country in Europe by 2050, overtaking both France and Germany, according to official projections.

Britain will see its population swell from today's 62.2 million to 77 million, an increase of 24 percent.

This will make it bigger than France, projected to be 70 million and Germany, which is predicted to have 71.5 million citizens.

The forecasts come from the Population Reference Bureau, a US body which supplies data to governments and institutions around the world.

The predictions suggest that Britain will see its population increase over the next 40 years at a far faster rate than nearly every other European country. The extra 15 million equates to the combined populations of Glasgow, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool being added to the total national population over the next two generations.

Britain's population has started to climb sharply in recent years. Last year the Office for National Statistics indicated that mothers had more children than at any time since 1973.

Immigrant mothers accounted for more than half of the increase in births, but the fertility rate among British-born women also rose sharply.

The Population Reference Bureau predicts that France's population, in contrast, will increase at half the rate, adding 7 million to its 63 million. While Germany will actually see its population fall sharply from 81.6 million to 71.5 million because of a lack of immigration, and a far lower birth rate than that in Britain. It already has the second oldest population in the world after Japan, with one in five of all Germans over the age of 65.

Europe, in total, will see its population dip from 739 million to 720 million, because of its low birth rate.

据官方预测，到2050年，英国将超过法国和德国，成为欧洲人口最多的国家。

英国人口将激增24%，从目前的6220万增长至7700万。

这将超过法国和德国的7000万和7150万。

这些预测由美国人口资料局做出。该机构向世界各地的政府和机构提供数据资料。

预测结果显示，在未来40年中，英国人口的增长速度将大大超过欧洲其它国家。这期间将增加的1500万人口相当于格拉斯哥、伯明翰、曼彻斯特、利兹和利物浦人口的总和。

近年来英国人口增长迅速。去年，英国国家统计局的统计数据显示，目前英国的人口出生率达1973年以来的最高水平。

其中，一半以上的新增人口来自移民家庭，不过英国本土女性的生育率也出现了大幅上升。

据人口资料局预测，法国人口的增长速度将为英国人口增幅的一半，将在目前的6300万基础上增加700万；德国由于移民少，出生率大大低于英国，未来该国的人口将从目前的8160万大幅减至7150万。德国人口的老龄化程度居世界第二，仅次于日本，该国65岁以上的老年人占总人口的五分之一。

总体来看，受低出生率的影响，未来欧洲的人口将从目前的7.39亿减至7.2亿。

Vocabulary:

overtake: to become greater in number, amount or importance than something else （在数量或重要性方面）大于，超过

projection: an estimate or a statement of what figures, amounts, or events will be in the future, or what they were in the past, based on what is happening now（预测；推断；设想）

dip: to go downwards or to a lower level（下降，下沉）