About 89.3% of the people of Romania are ethnic Romanians (as per 2021 census), whose native language, Romanian, is an Eastern Romance language, descended from Latin (more specifically from Vulgar Latin) with some Slavic, French, Turkish, German, Hungarian, Greek and Italian borrowings.

[7] With a population of about 19,054,267 people in 2022, Romania received 989,357 Ukrainian refugees on 27 May 2022, according to the United Nations (UN).

[8] The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine that began on 24 February 2022 triggered a major refugee crisis in Europe.

[10] Among the causes of population decline are high mortality, a low fertility rate since 1990, and tremendous levels of emigration.

[11] For the entire period 1990–2006, the estimated population loss tops 1.5 million,[11] but it is likely to be higher, given the explosion of migration for work after 2001 and the tendency of some migrants to settle permanently in the countries where they live.

During the war that percentage was halved, largely by the loss of the border areas of Bessarabia and northern Bukovina (to the former Soviet Union, now Moldova and Ukraine) and southern Dobrudja (to Bulgaria).

Two-thirds of the ethnic German population either left or were deported after World War II, a period that was followed by decades of relatively regular (by communist standards) migration.

[16] Of a total population of three quarter million Jews before World War II, about a third were killed during the Holocaust.

[17] Mass emigration, mostly to Israel and United States, has reduced the surviving Jewish community to less than 6,000 in 2002 (it is estimated that the real numbers could be 3–4 times higher).

The number of the Roma is usually underestimated in official statistics and may represent 5–11% of Romania's population.

The current vital statistics of Romania are as follows:[39] Average life expectancy at age 0 of the total population.

As a consequence of the pro-natalist policies of the Nicolae Ceaușescu regime (see Decree 770), Romania has a higher proportion of people born in the late 1960s and 1970s its population than any other Western country except Slovenia.