More people came to live in Scotland, the report found

Registrar General Duncan Macniven said the main reason for the increase was that 19,000 more people migrated to Scotland than moved away.

The 2005 Mid-Year Population Estimates report found an increase in births and fewer deaths.

The report showed a population increase of 16,400 to 5,094,800 from 2004 until 2005.

Compared with the previous year there were almost 700 more births and more than 1,000 fewer deaths but deaths exceeded the number of births by 2,300.

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Over the year there was a net gain from migration of about 19,000, including a net gain of 12,500 people from the rest of the UK and a net gain of 7,300 people from overseas.

The report showed 57,300 people came to Scotland from England, Wales and Northern Ireland and 44,800 left Scotland to go to those parts of the UK.

About 35,400 people (including asylum seekers) came to Scotland from overseas and about 28,100 people left to go overseas.

Mr Macniven said: "The main reason why Scotland's population has increased for three years in a row is because around 19,000 more people migrated to Scotland than moved away.

"This is the second highest figure for Scotland to date, 7,000 below last year's record figure of 26,000.

Economy concerns

"Although deaths still exceed births, it is encouraging that the number of births has continued to increase and that the number of deaths has fallen slightly."

The Scottish National Party described the population statistics as "particularly dire".

Enterprise spokesman Jim Mather said: "The first minister does us all a disservice by hailing these figures as a success when they show 144,000 people have left Scotland in the last two years and our birth rate remains 40% below the level needed to ensure replacement."

Mr Mather said there was a danger many of those migrating to Scotland from outside the UK would return home when they realised their home economy was growing faster than Scotland's.

"In reality, Scotland's situation is particularly dire when we consider that Ireland, which had only 2.8 million people in the 1970s, has grown to over four million and forecasts that it will comfortably overtake Scotland by 2020," he added.