Ireland has its highest population since 1841, newly-released Census data shows.

The State had a population of 5.1 million on April 3rd - an increase of 7.6% from 2016.

There were 2,593,600 women and 2,529,936 men recorded,  which is a jump of 7.7% and 7.5% respectively.

While all counties have seen population growth since 2016.

Longford saw biggest percentage increase at 14.1%, followed by Meath at 12.9%.

Source: CSO

In Leinster, 10 of the 12 counties showed a higher percentage increase than the national average, with Offaly and Kilkenny being lower.

In Munster, Waterford (+9.4%) had a higher percentage increase than that of the State overall.

Both Leitrim (+9.5%) and Roscommon (+8.4%) showed a higher percentage increase than the national rate - while Cavan, Donegal and Monaghan did not.

Highest population increase was in

• Longford (+14%, 5,761)
• Meath (+13%, 25,252)
• Fingal and Kildare (+11% in each, 33,198 and 24,473
  respectively)

Lowest population increase (with 5% in each) was in

• Donegal (5%, +7,129)
• Kilkenny (5%, +4,453)
• Kerry (5%, +7,551)
• Tipperary (5%, +8,108)

In the six years between Census 2016 and Census 2022, there was net inward migration of more than 190,000 people.

While the country's housing stock also increased to 2.1 million units, an increase of 6%.

And vacant dwellings, excluding holiday homes, fell to 166,752 - a drop of 9%.

A dwelling being classified as vacant for census purposes does not necessarily imply that it is available for re-use, the CSO says.

The preliminary results are based on initial counts from more than 5,000 enumeration areas.