Lithuanian Rural Settlements: The Legacy of Soviet Rural Planning and Current Challenges

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Some geographic and demographic characteristics of different types of regions (authors’ calculations based on data from the State Data Agency, 2024b)_

Regions	Population change in 2011–2021 (%)		Population density in 2021 inhabitants/km2		Occupied part of Lithuania’s area (%)	Population in 2021, thous./part of Lithuania’s population (%)
	In general	Urban/rural	In general	Rural
Metropolitan cities	–2.6	–2.6/–	1471	–	1.3	1283/44.4
Suburban regions	5.86	–0.9/8.9	60.3	47.2	9.0	345/12.3
Peri-urban regions	–12.6	–10.5/–14.7	30.1	15.1	18.4	362/12.9
Transition areas	–16.1	–11.5/–18.3	17.6	12.6	22.8	270/9.6
Peripheral regions	–16.2	–12.2/–19.6	18.5	10.9	48.5	585/20.8
In Lithuania	–7.6	–5.6/–11.7	43.1	14.1	100	2811/100

Demographic trends in different categories of settlements during the Soviet era and after 1990_

Settlement type	Soviet era		1990–2021
	Prevailing trend	Remarks	Prevailing trend	Remarks
General regularities in Lithuania	Total population is growing.	Migration from small rural settlements to larger rural settlements and cities is predominant. Natural population change is positive.	Total population is declining. Population is growing in capital (Vilnius) and suburbs of all cities. It is declining everywhere else.	Large-scale emigration. Labour migration from rural and smaller towns to large cities is prevalent type of internal migration. Natural population change is negative.
Suburbs (outside city limits)	Population is growing (despite territorial regulation of population).	Population is growing at expense of rural population settling around cities.	In suburbs of both big and small cities, population is growing.	Population is growing due to people moving out of cities. Most of them are young families. Natural population change is positive.
Former central kolkhoz settlements, present administrative rural (LAU-2) centres	Population is growing.	Population is growing at expense of surrounding small villages and granges. Natural population change is positive.	Population is declining rapidly.	Emigration to foreign countries and large cities is predominant. Natural population change is negative.
Small rural settlements and granges	Small rural settlements are declining. Granges are being rapidly destroyed.	Main reason for decline is Soviet government’s policy of destroying granges.	Population is declining. The smallest rural settlements and granges disappear.	Emigration to foreign countries and large cities is predominant. Due to age structure of population, mortality rates are several times higher than birth rates.