Sydney - Demographics

Demographics

The ten largest overseas born populations
Country of Birth Population (2006)
United Kingdom 175,166
People's Republic of China 109,142
New Zealand 81,064
Vietnam 62,144
Lebanon 54,502
India 52,975
Philippines 52,087
Italy 44,563
Hong Kong 36,866
South Korea 32,124
Sydney
population by year
1800 3,000
1820 12,000
1851 39,000
1871 200,000 (Gold Rush)
1901 500,000
1925 1,000,000
1962 2,000,000
2001 3,948,015 (Census)
2006 4,119,190 (Census)
2011 4,627,345 (Estimate)
2026 5,426,300 (Projected)
2056 6,976,800 (Projected)

The 2006 census reported 4,119,190 residents in the Sydney Statistical Division, of which 3,641,422 lived in Sydney's Urban Centre. Inner Sydney was the most densely populated place in Australia with 4,023 inhabitants per square kilometre (10,420 /sq mi). In the 2006 census, the most common self-described ancestries identified for Sydney residents were Australian, English, Irish, Scottish, and Chinese. The Census also recorded that 1.1% of Sydney's population identified as being of indigenous origin, and 31.7% were born overseas.

Asian Australians made up 18.8% of the population in Sydney's Urban Centre and 16.9% of the wider Statistical Division. The three major sources of immigrants are the United Kingdom, China and New Zealand, followed by Vietnam, Lebanon, India, Italy, and the Philippines. Many residents are native speakers of English; many have a second language, the most common being Arabic (predominantly Lebanese Arabic), Cantonese, Mandarin, Greek and Vietnamese. Sydney has the seventh-largest percentage of foreign-born individuals in the world. Immigrants account for 75% of Sydney's annual population growth.

The median age of Sydney residents is 36; 15.4% of the population is over 65 years old. 15.2% of residents have educational attainment equal to at least a bachelor's degree, In the 2011 census, 60.9% of the residents identified themselves as Christians, 17.6% had no religion, 7.6% left the question blank, 4.7% were Muslims, 4.1% were Buddhists, 2.6% were Hindus, 0.9% were Jewish and 1.6% were another religion.

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