Towns, both large and small, and villages are the fastest growing centres of population in Ireland. Proportionately, fewer people are living in cities, according to census data published by the Central Statistics Office.
Galway is the State's fastest growing city, while the numbers living in Limerick and Cork are actually declining.
The five major cities, Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford are losing population share; they grew at only half the rate of the entire country between 2002 and 2006.
Galway, with a population growth of almost 10 per cent, is the only city growing faster than the national average of 8.2 per cent.
Overall, the population share of the five cities fell from 35.5 per cent to 34.2 per cent, and less than one-fifth of overall population growth took place there.
By contrast, the number of large towns (those with a population of 10,000 or over) increased from 28 per cent to 34 per cent since the 2002 census. Arklow, Ballina, Midleton, Cobh, Wicklow and Mallow are now classified as large towns.
Swords in north Co Dublin showed the highest growth with 6,823 moving into the area, while Balbriggan grew by more than 50 per cent, the highest percentage growth.
Dublin has the highest population density, while Co Leitrim still has the most open space with the fewest people per square kilometre.
Smaller towns, with a population of 1,500 to 9,999, grew in size by one-fifth, as did villages.
The Irish Planning Institute (IPI) said the figures showed that many small villages were at risk either from depopulation or over-growth.
"It seems that small settlements are either losing population to such an extent that their future is at risk or are overwhelmed by population growth, resulting in the risk of becoming commuter towns," said IPI president Henk van der Kamp.
"Either scenario is undesirable, and better planning policies must be put in place to avoid these problems and to ensure balanced development of settlements in both rural and urban areas."
Meanwhile, the population of the Gaeltacht fell to 92,777 in the period, the CSO figures also show.
Most of the fall is accounted for by a decrease of over 2,000 in the most populous Gaeltacht area, Galway city and county. Only the Mayo breac-Gaeltacht recorded a marginal increase of fewer than 100, to a population of 10,947.
The population of most offshore islands is also in decline.
While the numbers living on the most populous island, Achill, remained static at 2,620, there were falls in population on Bere, Clear and Sherkin islands off Co Cork, Arranmore and Tory islands off Co Donegal, the three Aran islands off Co Galway, and Inishbiggle and Inishturk off Co Mayo.
However, Inishbofin off Co Galway and Clare Island off Co Mayo bucked the trend with small increases in population.
Seven offshore islands have a recorded population of one person each.
