By Ramesh Mathew
Staff Reporter
Qatar’s population has shot up by nearly 110,000 in less than 30 days, according to the latest figures released by the Ministry of Development Planning and Statistics yesterday.
The population has not only reached an all-time high but also crossed the 2.3mn mark. The latest figure is 2,334,029, at least 5% more than the figure (2,224,583) released on January 31. The previous highest was in November last year when there were  2,269,572 residents in Qatar.
In July 2002, Qatar’s total population stood at approximately only 545,000.
The current figure also shows a growth of more than 10% in the one year preceding last month. In the second month of 2014, Qatar had 2,116,400 residents, as per the latest data released on the ministry website.
The female population, standing at 584,427, is also incidentally the highest ever recorded in Qatar. The previous highest of 571,945 was in November last year.
The female population  touched half-a-million mark for the first time in April 2013 when the authorities released a figure of 507,561. The figure crossed the 550,000-mark in May last year, when there were 551,970 women in the country.
Such a massive growth in the population as the latest figure has only few parallels in the country in recent months. The last time such a growth was witnessed was when the population went up by almost 110,000 between August and September last year when apparently many residents returned to the country after the summer school vacation ended in the first week of September.
While the August 2014 figure stood at 2,077,357, on September 30 the figure went up to 2,187,326. The first time the country’s population hit the 2mn mark was in September 2013 when the ministry announced the figure as 2,035,106.
While there was a total growth of almost 100,000 between January (2,016,576) and February (2,116,400) figures in 2014, the growth in the corresponding period the previous year (2013) was just about 14,000.
While there were 1,903,447 residents in January 2013, the number rose to 1,917,116 the next month. In 2012, the growth between the two months was only about 1,000 people.
While there were 1,759,227 residents in January 2012, the population in February that year was 1,760,221.