Demography of London


The demography of London is analysed by the Office for National Statistics and data is produced for each of the Greater London wards, the City of London and the 32 London boroughs, the Inner London and Outer London statistical sub-regions, each of the Parliamentary constituencies in London, and for all of Greater London as a whole. Additionally, data is produced for the Greater London Urban Area. Statistical information is produced about the size and geographical breakdown of the population, the number of people entering and leaving country and the number of people in each demographic subgroup.

Population change

The historical population for the current area of Greater London, divided into the statistical areas of Inner and Outer London is as follows:
Year1801181118211831184118511861187118811891
Inner London879,491 1,040,033 1,263,975 1,515,557 1,661,346 1,995,846 2,634,143 3,272,441 3,910,735 4,422,340
Outer London131,666 157,640 186,147 214,392 255,667 290,763 460,248 629,737 799,225 1,143,516
Greater London1,011,157 1,197,673 1,450,122 1,729,949 1,917,013 2,286,609 3,094,391 3,902,178 4,709,960 5,565,856

Year1901191119211931194119511961197119811991
Inner London 4,670,177 4,997,741 4,936,803 4,887,932 4,224,135 3,680,821 3,336,557 3,030,490 2,425,534 2,625,245
Outer London 1,556,317 2,160,134 2,616,723 3,211,010 3,763,801 4,483,595 4,444,785 4,418,694 4,182,979 4,262,035
Greater London 6,226,494 7,157,875 7,553,526 8,098,942 7,987,936 8,164,416 7,781,342 7,449,184 6,608,513 6,887,280

Year20012011
Inner London 2,765,975 3,231,900
Outer London 4,406,061 4,942,100
Greater London 7,172,036 8,173,900

Race by borough

This table shows the proportion of different races by London borough, as found in the 2011 census.
Local authorityWhiteMixedAsianBlackOther
Barnet64.14.818.57.74.8
Barking and Dagenham58.34.215.9201.6
Bexley81.92.36.68.50.8
Brent36.35.134.118.85.8
Bromley84.33.55.260.9
Camden66.35.616.18.23.8
City of London78.63.912.72.62.1
Croydon55.16.616.420.21.8
Ealing494.529.710.96
Enfield615.511.217.25.1
Greenwich62.54.811.719.11.9
Hackney54.76.410.523.15.3
Haringey60.56.59.518.84.7
Harrow42.2442.68.22.9
Havering87.72.14.94.80.6
Hammersmith and Fulham68.15.59.111.85.5
Hillingdon60.63.825.37.33
Hounslow51.44.134.46.63.6
Islington68.26.59.212.83.4
Kensington and Chelsea70.65.7106.57.2
Kingston upon Thames74.53.916.32.52.7
Lambeth57.17.66.925.92.4
Lewisham53.57.49.327.22.6
Merton64.94.718.110.41.9
Newham294.543.519.63.5
Redbridge42.54.141.88.92.7
Richmond upon Thames863.67.31.51.6
Southwark54.36.29.426.93.3
Sutton78.63.811.64.81.3
Tower Hamlets45.24.141.17.32.3
Waltham Forest52.25.321.117.34.1
Wandsworth71.4510.910.72.1
Westminster61.75.214.57.511.1

Ethnicity

The following table shows the ethnic group of respondents in the 2011 census in Greater London.
In January 2005, a survey of London's ethnic and religious diversity claimed that there were more than 300 languages spoken and 50 non-indigenous communities with a population of more than 10,000 in London.

Country of birth

The 2011 census recorded that 2,998,264 people or 36.7% of London's population are foreign-born making London the city with the second largest immigrant population in absolute terms, after New York City. The table to the right shows the most common countries of birth of London residents. Note that some of the German-born population, in 18th position, are British citizens from birth born to parents serving in the British Armed Forces in Germany.

Languages

According to the 2011 Census, 6,083,420 or 77.9% of London's population aged 3 and over spoke English as a main language, with a further 1,406,912 speaking it as a second language or well to very well. 271,693 could not speak English well, while 47,917 could not speak English at all. 2,456 spoke other UK minority languages, with the most common being Welsh and 2,926 used British Sign Language. This shows also great challenges for TfL and other government services, for example most ticket vending machines use only English, French and up to 2 other western Europe hemisphere languages, while as shown below most demand is for Indian languages, Polish etc.
The most common main languages spoken in Greater London according to the 2011 census are shown below.
RankLanguageUsual residents aged 3+Proportion
1English6,083,42077.90%
2Polish147,8161.90%
3Bengali 114,2671.50%
4Gujarati101,6761.30%
5French84,1911.10%
6Urdu78,6671.00%
7Portuguese71,5250.90%
8Turkish71,2420.90%
9Spanish71,1920.90%
10Arabic70,6020.90%
11Tamil70,5650.90%
12Punjabi68,5250.90%
13Somali54,8520.70%
14Italian49,4840.60%
15Romanian39,6530.50%
16Persian39,6450.50%
17Lithuanian35,3410.50%
18German31,3060.40%
19Greek26,9240.30%
20Russian26,6030.30%
Other441,9685.66%

Religion

The following table shows the religion of respondents in the 2001 and 2011 censuses in Greater London.

Eurostat NUTS

In the Eurostat Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics, London is a level-1 NUTS region, coded "UKI", which is subdivided as follows:

Urban and metropolitan area

At the 2001 census, the population of the Greater London Urban Area was 8,278,251. This area does not include some outliers within Greater London, but does extend into the adjacent South East England and East of England regions. In 2004 the London Plan of the Mayor of London defined a metropolitan region with a population of 18 million. Eurostat has developed a harmonising standard for comparing metropolitan areas in the European Union and the population of the London Larger Urban Zone is 11,917,000; it occupies an area of. Another definition gives the population of the metropolitan area as 13,709,000.