According to the Icelandic Census 2011, the total number of persons residing in Iceland was 315,556 on 31 December of 2011. This was 4,019 persons fewer than in the population statistics previously published by Statistics Iceland which is based on legal domicile. This is mainly due to different definitions.

This is part of the results from the new Icelandic Census with the reference date of 31 December 2011. In addition to traditional population statistics, the Census also covers families, private households, persons living in institutional households, homeless persons, educational attainment, labour market status and housing arrangements. The Census is a register based Census where information on the population is derived from official registers. The Census was co-financed by the European Commission and is part of comparable Censuses conducted all over Europe in 2011.

The Icelandic population consists of 81,380 families and 60,454 persons not in family nucleus. Most of the families are families with children. The number of families with at least one child younger than 25 was 54,222 and 22,444 families consisted of couples without any children. There were 118,617 private households according to the Census with 307,398 persons which corresponds to 2.59 individuals on average in each private household. In addition 7,397 persons were living in institutional households and 761 were homeless or not living in a private household, but category not stated.

The Census gives a good overview of the educational attainment of the Icelandic population. Off those who were 15 years and older 60,922 had finished tertiary education, or 24.4%, compared to 102,832 who had only finished lower secondary education or less, or 41.2%.

According to the Census 72.2% of persons 16 years or older were economically active, 69% of women compared to 75.3% of men. The unemployment rate was 6.2%. Off those who were economically active 14,793 where non-nationals or 8.3%. The activity rate was highest amongst citizens from EU countries or Asia and lowest amongst citizens from North-America.

According to the Census 85,045 households occupied dwellings with at least one household member owning the dwelling, 31,851 households occupied rented dwellings, and 1,721 had other types of tenure status.

The proportion of unoccupied conventional dwellings out of all conventional dwellings was 6.6%.

Census 2011 - Main results - Statistical Series