The number of deaths exceeded births in the first half of the year

Spain’s population will fall by more than five million over the next 50 years, according to a forecast that raises the prospect of even more “ghost villages” around the country.

In the first six months of this year, Spain recorded 225,924 deaths and 206,656 births, the national statistics institute reported. The country has not seen deaths exceed births consistently since the civil war, from 1936 to 1939, and before that the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic.

Although this year’s statistics could have been a blip, the institute predicts that the population will fall by a million from its present 46.5 million over the next 15 years. Over the next 50 years, it is expected to drop by 5.6 million.

Spain took in some seven million immigrants,