KUALA LUMPUR, July 31 — Malaysia’s total population now numbers 34.1 million, according to data from the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) in its Current Population Estimates 2024 released today.

The growth of 0.7 million people was in comparison to 33.4 million recorded for the same period last year.

Although the population has grown overall, the composition of citizens have dipped in comparison to foreigners.

The department attributed the increase in the composition of non-citizens to the reopening of Malaysia’s borders on April 1, 2022 and the implementation of the Employment Recalibration Programme 2.0 in January 2023.

"The composition of citizens in 2024 decreased from 91.1 per cent (2023) to 90.0 per cent, while non-citizens increased to 10.0 per cent from 8.9 per cent over the same period,” the report said.

As citizens made up 30.7 million of the population, the report found that Bumiputeras dominated the citizens’ demographic at 70.4 per cent, an increase from last year’s 70.1 per cent.

"Meanwhile, the composition of the Chinese and Indians decreased from 22.6 per cent and 6.6 per cent respectively in 2023, to 22.4 per cent and 6.5 per cent in 2024 while Others remained at 0.7 per cent,” it said.

Although Selangor was the most populated state making up 21.6 per cent of the nation’s population, it came in fifth as one of the most densely populated states at only 927 people per square kilometre.

In contrast, Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya have 8,518 and 2,440 people per square kilometre respectively.