Figures released by Britain’s Office for National Statistics show that the population stood at 62.3 million in the year leading up to mid-2010, up on 61.8 million the year before.
Population figures can be political in Britain, an island nation with highly charged attitudes toward immigration.
Britain’s Conservative-led government has pledged to clamp down on what it calls “uncontrolled migration” — a phenomenon it partially blamed for the population boost Thursday.
Government statisticians say most of the population growth is down to so-called “natural change,” or the difference between births and deaths.