Couples in Hungary, Lithuania and Latvia seal most marriages
Traditional Hungarian wedding. Photo EPA, Peter Komka
Central Europe
Hungary is the country that tops the list of nations with the most marriages. The nation-state is followed by Latvia and Lithuania. Remarkable is that the latter two are also in the top three countries with the highest divorce rate.
Per 1,000 inhabitants of Hungary, 6.88 people got married in 2020. In Latvia, 5.63 people per 1,000 citizens were united in matrimony, while this number was 5.47 in Lithuania. The average of the European Union is 3.2, as Ungarn Heute reports.
The number of marriages in Hungary has increased in recent years. In 2008, there were only four marriages per thousand people. The Hungarian government has introduced several policies to stimulate the increase in marriages.
Trend of decline in marriages
According to Eurostat, which provided the statistics on marriage, the marriage rate in the European Union has declined from 8.0 per 1000 people in 1964 to 3.2 in 2020. According to Eurostat, the number of divorces doubled between 1964 and 2020. However, one remarkable thing is that the number of divorces has dropped a bit over the last ten years. In 2010, 1.9 people per 1000 Europeans went separate ways.
About 1.4 million marriages were sealed in 2020 in the EU in total. At the same time, 0.7 million divorces took place. That is less than in 2019, but Covid restrictions can partly explain the decrease, Eurostat writes.
Italy is the country with the least number of marriages. Per 1,000 inhabitants, only 1.6 got married in 2020.
Divorce rate high in Latvia and Lithuania
In Hungary, 1.52 divorces were registered per 1,000 inhabitants in 2020 Hungary Today reports. That is lower than the EU average of 1.6.
Latvia and Lithuania, however, have a divorce rate of 2.7. With that number, they are in the top three of the list of countries with the highest divorce rate.
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