London's ethnic minority population

 Add your view

London has always had an ethnic minority population. Numbers rose rapidly after the Second World War: by the 1971 census there were 584,000 members of ethnic minorities, by 1981 there were 945,000 and by 1991 there were 1.3 million, including 37 different migrant communities of more than 10,000 [see table below]. The ethnic minority population of the city is expected to reach 1.9 million by 2006.

If white minorities such as the Irish are included, then more than one-in-three London inhabitants are estimated to be from ethnic minority groups - nearly half the total for the whole of Britain. London boroughs occupy the first seven places (and 16 of the first 20 places) in the list of British districts with the largest ethnic minority percentages.

London Research Centre projections show that the proportion of ethnic minorities in 2001 will range from 56 per cent in Newham; 51 per cent in Brent; 42 per cent in Tower Hamlets; 39 per cent in Ealing and 38 per cent in Hackney, down to five per cent in Havering; seven per cent in both Richmond and Bromley, and eight per cent in both Sutton and Bexley.

Country of origin

Irish Republic 214,033
India 151,619
Scotland 113,117
Jamaica 76,445
Wales 70,532
Kenya 56,993
Bangladesh 56,657
Cyprus 50,684
Pakistan 44,741
Northern Ireland 42,243
Nigeria 36,047
USA 32,667
Germany 32,027
Italy 30,052
Uganda 28,244
Ghana 26,925
Sri Lanka 25,818
Australia 23,315
Poland 21,823
France 20,923
Turkey 20,426
Spain 19,047
South Africa 18,496
Hong Kong 18,398
New Zealand 18,379
Japan 17,192
Iran 16,856
Malaysia 16,163
Tanzania 15,452
Guyana 14,662
Mauritius 13,907
Barbados 13,466
Philippines 13,429
Portugal 13,125
Vietnam 11,858
Canada 11,626
Trinidad & Tobago 10,184

Source: Cosmopolitan London: Past, present and future by Marian Storkey, Jackie Maguire and Rob Lewis, London Research Centre, 1997

 

What's on today   What's on tomorrow

Receive our newsletter