Population
According to thesciencetutor, Andorra has had an incredibly rapid population increase since the Second World War and the population has multiplied. This has mainly been due to extensive immigration. Only 36 percent of residents are Andorran citizens, while 37 percent are Spaniards, 13 percent Portuguese and 7 percent French. About 85 percent of the population lives in urban areas, mainly in and around the capital Andorra la Vella (19,800 residents, 2019) and Les Escaldes (15,000).
Language
The official language and mother tongue of the indigenous population is Catalan. The most common languages among the numerous immigrants are Spanish, French and Portuguese.
HUMAN AND ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY
Western European state, between France and Spain, on the southern side of the Pyrenees. At a 2005 estimate, the population was equal to 70,550 residents, With an increase of 6.9 % compared to the last census (1999). The specialization of the economy in the tertiary sense continued, and the active population employed in this sector exceeded four fifths of the total. A true tax haven, for which more and more banking and financial companies established themselves there, Andorra also continued to attract millions of tourists every year (3, 1 in 2003, but many more including simple hikers). The capital, Andorra la Vella, in 2004 had about 22,000 residents.
HISTORY
The elections of February 1997, giving the absolute majority of seats (18 out of the 28 up for grabs) to the Unió Liberal (UL), confirmed the shift to the right of the political structure of the country started in 1994: in November of that year, in fact, the Parliament had discouraged the government in office of O. Ribas Reig and had elected in his place M. Forné Molné, leader of the UL. The electoral victory of 1997 again led to the leadership of the executive Forné Molné, who continued the policy of deregulation in fiscal and financial matters already partially initiated since 1993and aimed at attracting foreign capital to the country, effectively adopting a purely symbolic taxation on capital and protecting bank deposits through a system that circumvented any transparency.
These choices were harshly criticized internationally, so much so that in April 2002 the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) accused Andorra of favoring the use of the country’s banks for laundering money deriving from illegal activities. In domestic politics, while following the 1997 electoral defeat Agrupament Nacional Democràtic (AND) split into two new groupings, Partit Socialdemócrata (PS) and Partit Demócrata (PD), in that same year the UL changed its name, becoming Partit Liberal of Andorra (PLA).
The latter party continued to lead the country’s government, as confirmed by the two successive elections in March 2001 (which assigned 15 seats out of 28 to the PLA) and April 2005 (14 seats). In May 2005 Forné Molné was replaced at the helm of the executive by former Foreign Minister Andorra Pintat.