residential areas of the city were destroyed. After large incorporations and city restoration, the population grew to 522,532 again between 1946 and 1983. Since German reunification, demographic development has been very unsteady. The city has struggled with migration and suburbanisation. During the 1990s the population increased to 480,000 because of several incorporations, and decreased to 452,827 in 1998. Between 2000 and 2010, the population grew quickly by more than 45,000 inhabitants (about 9.5%) due to a stabilised economy and re-urbanisation. Along with Munich and Potsdam, Dresden is one of the ten fastest-growing cities in Germany. the population of the city of Dresden was 557,075, the population of the Dresden agglomeration was 790,400 , and the population of the Dresden metropolitan area, which includes the neighbouring districts of Meißen, Sächsische Schweiz-Osterzgebirge, Bautzen and Görlitz, was 1,343,305. As of 2018 about 50.0% of the population was female. the mean age of the population was 43 years, which is the lowest among the urban districts in Saxony. there were 67,841 people with a migration background (12.1% of the population, increased from 7.2% in 2010), and about two-thirds of these, 44,665 or about 8.0% of all Dresden citizens were foreigners. This percentage increased from 4.1% in 2010. Governance Dresden is one of Germany's 16 political centres and the capital of Saxony. It has institutions of democratic local self-administration that are independent from the capital functions. Some local affairs of Dresden receive national attention. Dresden hosted some international summits in recent years, such as the Petersburg Dialogue between Russia and Germany, the European Union's Minister of the Interior conference and the G8 labour ministers conference. Mayor The city council is the legislative branch of the city government. The council gives orders to the mayor () via resolutions and decrees, and thus also has some degree of executive power. The first freely elected mayor after German reunification was Herbert Wagner of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), who served from 1990 to 2001. The mayor was originally chosen by the city council, but since 1994 has been directly elected. Ingolf Roßberg of the Free Democratic Party (FDP) served from 2001 until 2008. He was succeeded by Helma Orosz (CDU). Dirk Hilbert was elected mayor in 2015 under the banner "Independent Citizens for Dresden". He was nominated by the FDP and Free Voters, and was endorsed by the CDU and AfD in the runoff. The most recent mayoral