London-who’s here

For first time visitors to London will the demographics of the capital may be a surprise to what they’re expecting. I was speaking to a visitor from southeast Asia on his first trip to the UK earlier this year and he couldn’t believe the mix of people in London and the number different nationalities floating around.

London has a population of around 7.5million and is the largest city in the European Union. Its got a average population density of just over 4,700 per sq.km but in some of the central London boroughs like Islington, Hackney, Tower Hamlets and Kensington and Chelsea this is well over 10,000 per sq.km.

According to the last census 25% of people living in London where born overseas, I think that proportion will have shot up over the last couple years with the EU enlargement and the number of east Europeans coming to work in London. Plus there are thousands of undocumented illegals or failed asylum seekers around.

The census says that 60% of Londoners are white-British, about 12% other white(Europeans/Middle Eastern), over 12% Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi, around 11% black and more than 3% mixed race, and 3% are Chinese, Vietnamese and Filipino. The Irish are the largest foreign born community.

Even though 60% of Londoners are classed as white it may seem less to visitors because there’s a high concentration of ethnic groups in the inner London boroughs. Brent has 71% of its population from ethnic minorities and nine London boroughs have more than 50% of their population made up of ethnic minority groups.

As far as religion goes 60% identified themselves as Christian, around 9% Muslim, 4% Hindu, 2% Jewish and small percentages as Buddist or Sikh. There are still high concentrations of religions in certain areas. In east London, Tower Hamlets is 36% Muslim and Newham 24%. Barnet in north London has the highest percentage of Jewish people of a London borough, 15%. Hindus make up 20% of the population of Harrow and 17% of Brent’s. In west London Sikh’s are 9% of both Hounslow and Ealing’s population and 5% of Hillingdon’s.

Whatever your country of origin or religious persuasion you’ve got a pretty good chance of finding someone with a similar background in London.