the province, primarily from 1880 to 1885 (95,000 emigrants). Between 1880 and 1910, 426,000 more people emigrated than immigrated. Emigrants came primarily from rural areas, which they left for economic reasons; prime destinations were Ruhr area and Berlin (). Most people emigrated from Regierungsbezirk Köslin, where the population numbers of 1880 were only reached again in 1899. The Province of Pomerania was one of the three provinces (the other two were West Prussia and Province of Posen) responsible for most of the German emigrants who went overseas. Imperial Commissioners for emigration ("Reichskommissar für Auswanderung") organized emigration from Hamburg, Bremen, Stettin, and Swinemünde. Emigration to overseas ended in 1893, when in America the free availability of soil claims ended. 1905: Of 1,684,326 inhabitants 1,616,550 were Protestants, 50,206 Roman Catholics and 9660 Jews, (1900) 14,162 Polish speakers (at the West Prussian border) and 310 Kashubian speakers (at the Lakes Lebasee and Gardescher See). 1907: 440,000 people born in the province lived in other areas of Germany. 1910: 1,716,921 inhabitants, 55,3% of those lived in communities with less than 2,000 inhabitants, and 13,7% in Stettin. Of those, the majority was Protestant (1,637,299; i.e. 95,36%), 56,298 were Roman Catholics (3,27%), less than one percent were Old Lutherans (primarily in the Cammin and Greifenberg counties), and 8862 were Jews (0,52%) Polish seasonal workers were employed in Pomeranian agriculture since the 1890s, initially to replace the emigrants. In 1910, 7921 Poles lived steadily in the province. In 1912, 12,000 seasonal workers were employed in agriculture, in 1914 their number increased to 42,000. 1919: On October 8, 1919, the province had 1,787,179 inhabitants. This population had increased by 160,000 in 1925. On October 1, 1938, the bulk of the former Province of Posen-West Prussia was merged into the Province of Pomerania, adding an area of with a population of 251,000. On October 15, Stettin's city limits were expanded to an area of , housing 383,000 people. During the Soviet conquest of Farther Pomerania and the subsequent expulsions of Germans until 1950, 498,000 people from the part of the province east of the Oder-Neisse line died, making up for 26,4% of the former population. Of the 498,000 dead, 375,000 were civilians, and 123,000 were Wehrmacht soldiers. Low estimates give a million expellees from the then Polish part of the province in 1945 and the following years. Only remained with Germany, about a fourth of the province's size before