AUSTRALIA'S POPULATION BY COUNTRY OF BIRTH

The cultural and linguistic diversity of Australia's resident population has been reshaped over many years by migration. Historically, more people immigrate to, than emigrate from, Australia. At 30 June 2011, 27% of the estimated resident population was born overseas (6.0 million people). This was an increase from ten years earlier at 23.1% (4.5 million people).

Persons born in the United Kingdom continued to be the largest group of overseas-born residents, accounting for 5.3% of Australia's total population at 30 June 2011. This was followed by persons born in New Zealand (2.5%), China (1.8%), India (1.5%) and Vietnam and Italy (0.9% each).

Over the last 10 years, the proportion of the Australian population who were born in the United Kingdom decreased from 5.8% in 2001 to 5.3% in 2011. Conversely, the proportions increased for people born in New Zealand (from 2% to 2.5%), China (from 0.8% to 1.8%) and India (from 0.5% to 1.5%).

In terms of Australia's population growth, for the top 50 countries of birth at 30 June 2011, persons born in Nepal had the highest rate of increase between 2001 and 2011 with an average annual growth rate of 27%. However, this growth began from a small base of 2,800 persons at 30 June 2001. The second fastest increase over this period was in the number of persons born in Sudan (17.6% per year on average), followed by those born in India (12.7%), Bangladesh (11.9%) and Pakistan (10.2%). Of the top 50 countries of birth, the number of persons born in Hungary decreased the most, with an average annual decrease of 1.4%, closely followed by both Italy and Poland, with an average annual decrease of 1.3% each. The next largest decreases were of persons born in Malta and Cyprus (0.8% each).

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