Powered by .id (informed decisions) for City of Sydney
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LEARN MORE ABOUT .idThe three largest ancestries in the City of Sydney in 2021 were English, Australian and Chinese.
Ancestry defines the cultural association and ethnic background of an individual going back three generations. Ancestry is a good measure of the total size of cultural groups in the City of Sydney regardless of where they were born or what language they speak.
Ancestry data, should be combined with data on Birthplace, Language Spoken at Home and Religion for a more complete picture of the City of Sydney's ethnic characteristics.
Please note that the "Australian Aboriginal" and "Torres Strait Islander" categories in this topic are not directly comparable from 2021 to previous years, due to a change in the wording of the question. In 2021, these options were marked boxes on the question rather than write-in options. The "Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Origin" question is still considered a more reliable count for this group, and can be found on the Population summary page.
Please note: Due to changes in ABS rules around perturbation and additivity of data to protect the confidentiality of individuals, counts of ancestry groups and totals derived from them may differ slightly from those published by the ABS. For more information see notes on data confidentiality.
Q:
Derived from the Census question:
'What is the person's ancestry?'
Multi-response
| Ancestry - Totals | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| City of Sydney - Total persons (Usual residence) | 2021 | 2001 | Change | ||||
| Ancestry totals | Number | % | Greater Sydney % | Number | % | Greater Sydney % | 2001 to 2021 |
| Not stated | 16,070 | 5.9 | 4.7 | 23,983 | 18.3 | 6.6 | -7,914 |
| Total responses | 271,005 | -- | -- | 131,139 | -- | -- | +139,866 |
| Total people | 211,645 | -- | -- | 128,520 | -- | -- | +83,124 |
Show all (128 entries)
Dominant groups
Analysis of the ancestry responses of the population in City of Sydney in 2021 shows that the top five ancestries nominated were:
- English (53,016 people or 25.0%)
- Australian (35,616 people or 16.8%)
- Chinese (35,572 people or 16.8%)
- Irish (22,547 people or 10.7%)
- Scottish (15,789 people or 7.5%)
In combination these five ancestries account for 162,540 responses in total, or 76.80% of all responses.
The major differences between the ancestries of the population in the City of Sydney and Greater Sydney were:
- A larger percentage of people with Chinese ancestry (16.8% compared to 10.6%)
- A larger percentage of people with Irish ancestry (10.7% compared to 7.7%)
- A smaller percentage of people with Australian ancestry (16.8% compared to 22.3%)
- A smaller percentage of people with Lebanese ancestry (0.9% compared to 3.3%)
Emerging groups
The largest changes in the reported ancestries of the population in this area between 2001 and 2021 were:
- Chinese (+23,936 persons)
- English (+20,643 persons)
- Scottish (+11,986 persons)
- Australian (+10,514 persons)
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