Despite thousands of expatriates and citizens being out of the country for holidays, there remained well over two million people in Qatar at the end of December.

The Ministry of Development Planning and Statistics released its monthly preliminary figures yesterday for Qatar’s population as of Dec. 31, 2013, which takes into account only nationals and expatriates currently in the country.

The total population of Qatar is now 2,045,239 with 1,530,101 of those being male and 515,138 being female.

Qatar hit the two million mark just a few months ago – at the end of September. According to the Qatar National Development Strategy (pdf), which forecast growth from 2011 to 2016, the population was not expected to surpass 1.9 million even a couple years from now.

Qatar’s population at this time last year on Dec. 31 stood at 1.8 million people. Going to back to Dec. 31, 2008, that number was 1.5 million.

The male to female ratio has stayed fairly constant – taking into account some ebbs and flows – with three men for every woman in Qatar.

All the same, total population is still down by about 23,000 people as compared to Qatar’s current record for highest population period – 2,068,050 at the end of November 2013.

You can expect the country’s population to only continue to grow in 2014. Recently, a Ministry of Development Planning and Statistics official predicted a national population of 2.4 million by the time 2015 rolls around.

Who’s feeling crowded?