Where the population of Europe is growing – and where it’s declining

Well, don't move the goalposts like this. I never said 'absolute'. You're also arguing from extremes, which isn't appropriate, given that the map is a mostly closed system - population comes from the blue and goes to the orange, with some outside immigration. For the most part, the amount of orange and blue in the map will balance, none of this "orange areas have a population you can count on your fingers, blue areas are jam-packed metropoles" imbalance. Particularly since most of the areas in the map have a four-figure population - they're mostly in the same order of magnitude, not the five orders of magnitude difference that you're suggesting. Run your pointer over the map and check out the populations.

You're also conflating "populous" with "popular". For example, slums are jam-packed with people (= populous), but that doesn't mean that they all want to be there (= popular).