The population of Australia is estimated to be 27,657,000 as of 7 February 2025.[11] It is the 54th[12] most populous country in the world and the most populous Oceanian country. Its population is concentrated mainly in urban areas, particularly on the Eastern, South Eastern and Southern seaboards, and is expected to exceed 30 million by 2029.[13]
Australia's population has grown from an estimated population of between 300,000 and 2,400,000 Indigenous Australians at the time of British colonisation in 1788 due to numerous waves of immigration during the period since. Also due to immigration, the European component's share of the population rose sharply in the late 18th and 19th centuries, but is now declining as a percentage.[14]
Estimated resident population of Australia since 1981
Population estimates in the table below do not include the Aboriginal population before 1961. Estimates of Aboriginal population before European settlement range from 300,000 to one million, with archaeological finds indicating a sustainable maximum population of around 750,000.[17] Where available, actual population figures from census years are included.
Map of the median age of Australians by Statistical Local Area in the 2011 census
Median age of the Australia population through history. Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics.[26][27][29][30]
Years
1901
1911
1921
1951
1961
1971
1981
1991
2001
2015
2017
Median age of the total population
22.5
24.0
25.8
30.3
29.3
27.7
29.6
32.4
35.7
37.4
38.7
Median age of males
23.6
24.6
26.1
29.9
28.7
27.0
29.0
31.7
34.9
37.9
Median age of females
21.5
23.4
25.5
30.8
30.2
28.3
30.2
33.0
36.4
39.5
Structure of the population
Australian babies: 0 year olds as a fraction of total persons, in Australia, according to the 2011 census results.Australian babies: 0–4 year olds as a fraction of total persons, in Australia, according to the 2011 census results
Population by Sex and Age Group (Census 09.VIII.2016) (These data have been randomly rounded to protect confidentiality. Individual figures may not add up to totals, and values for the same data may vary in different tables.):[31]
Age Group
Male
Female
Total
%
Total
11 546 638
11 855 248
23 401 892
100
0–4
752 142
712 638
1 464 779
6.26
5–9
771 055
731 592
1 502 646
6.42
10–14
717 629
679 553
1 397 183
5.97
15–19
727 677
693 915
1 421 595
6.07
20–24
795 423
771 369
1 566 793
6.70
25–29
824 084
840 525
1 664 602
7.11
30–34
839 821
864 026
1 703 847
7.28
35–39
773 132
788 548
1 561 679
6.67
40–44
777 702
805 551
1 583 257
6.77
45–49
773 170
808 282
1 581 455
6.76
50–54
748 954
774 601
1 523 551
6.51
55–59
709 115
745 214
1 454 332
6.21
60–64
632 357
667 048
1 299 397
5.55
65-69
581 230
607 766
1 188 999
5.08
70-74
431 325
456 390
887 716
3.79
75-79
307 441
345 217
652 657
2.79
80-84
204 026
256 529
460 549
1.97
85-89
123 502
185 463
308 960
1.32
90-94
46 828
93 570
140 398
0.60
95-99
9 244
24 672
33 920
0.14
100+
777
2 788
3 569
0.02
Age group
Male
Female
Total
Percent
0–14
2 240 826
2 123 783
4 364 609
18.65
15–64
7 601 439
7 759 070
15 360 509
65.64
65+
1 704 373
1 972 395
3 676 768
15.71
Population density
As of June 2022[update], the population density of Australia was reported as 3.4/km2 (8.8/sq mi).[32] This makes Australia the 3rd least densely populated country in the world, after Namibia and Mongolia.[33]
Australia contains five cities (including their suburbs) that consist of over one million people. Most of Australia's population live close to coastlines.[43]
Graphs are unavailable due to technical issues. Updates on reimplementing the Graph extension, which will be known as the Chart extension, can be found on Phabricator and on MediaWiki.org.
Graphs are unavailable due to technical issues. Updates on reimplementing the Graph extension, which will be known as the Chart extension, can be found on Phabricator and on MediaWiki.org.
Graphs are unavailable due to technical issues. Updates on reimplementing the Graph extension, which will be known as the Chart extension, can be found on Phabricator and on MediaWiki.org.
At the time of Australian Federation in 1901, the rate of natural increase was 14.9 persons per 1,000 population. The rate increased to a peak of 17.4 per thousand population in the years 1912, 1913 and 1914. During the Great Depression, the rate declined to a low of 7.1 per thousand population in 1934 and 1935. Immediately after World War II, the rate increased sharply as a result of the start of the post–World War II baby boom and the immigration of many young people who then had children in Australia. A rate plateau of over 13.0 persons per 1,000 population occurred for every year from 1946 to 1962.
There has been a fall in the rate of natural increase since 1962 due to falling fertility. In 1971, the rate of natural increase was 12.7 persons per 1,000 population; a decade later it had fallen to 8.5. In 1996 the rate of natural increase fell below seven for the first time, with the downward trend continuing in the late 1990s. Population projections by the Australian Bureau of Statistics indicate that continued low fertility, combined with the increase in deaths from an ageing population, will result in natural increase falling below zero sometime in the mid-2030s. However, in 2006 the fertility rate rose to 1.81, one of the highest rates in the OECD.
Since 1901, the crude death rate has fallen from about 12.2 deaths per 1,000 population, to 6.4 deaths per 1,000 population in 2006.[57]
The earliest accepted timeline for the first arrivals of indigenous Australians to the continent of Australia places this human migration to at least 40,000 years ago.[61]
Dutch navigators landed on the coasts of modern Western Australia and Queensland several times during the 17th century. Captain James Cook wrote that he claimed the east coast for Great Britain in 1770 while standing on Possession Island off the west coast of Cape York Peninsula. The west coast was later settled by Britain also. At that time, the indigenous population was estimated to have numbered between as few as 315,000 and as many as 1,100,000,[62][63] divided into many tribes speaking many different languages. In the 2011 census, 495,757 respondents declared they were Aboriginal, 31,407 declared they were Torres Strait Islander, and a further 21,206 declared they were both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.[64]
Today, most of Australia's Indigenous population live on the east coast of Australia, where almost 60% of Indigenous Australians live in New South Wales (208,476) and Queensland (188,954) which roughly represents 2–5% of those state's populations. The Northern Territory has an Indigenous population of 61,115, which represents 26.3% of the total Northern Territory population.[65]
There were 24,737 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander births registered in 2023, an increase of 349 babies from 2022. This represents 8.6% of all births registered in 2023. The total fertility rate for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women was 2.17 births per woman.[66]
Of the 24,388 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander births registered in 2022 only 23% were births for which both parents were identified as being of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander origin on the birth certificate. 45% were births where only the mother was of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander origin (including births where paternity was not acknowledged or the father's Indigenous status was not stated), and 32% were births where only the father was of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander origin (including births where the mother's Indigenous status was not stated).[67]
European Australians from 1947 to 1966 when racial data was collected in the country
The earliest accepted timeline for the first arrivals of humans to the continent of Australia places this human migration to at least 65,000 years ago,[68] most probably from the islands of Indonesia and New Guinea.[61]
Captain James Cook claimed the east coast for Great Britain in 1770; the west coast was later settled by Britain also. At that time, the indigenous population was estimated to have been between 315,000 and 750,000,[62] divided into as many as 500 tribes speaking many different languages.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics no longer collects data on race, but does ask each Australian resident to nominate up to two ancestries each census.[71] These ancestry responses are classified into broad standardised ancestry groups.[72] In the 2021 census, the most commonly nominated individual ancestries as a proportion of the total population were:[73]
At the 2021 census, 3.2% of the Australian population identified as being Indigenous — Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders.[N 10][74] In 2020, 7.5% of births were Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander persons up from 5.7% in 2010; Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander fertility rates have stayed above replacement levels even as the nation's has declined rapidly.[75]
Although the ABS does not collect data on race and ethnic background, various studies have put together results of the census to determine the ethnic composition of Australia, the Australian Human Rights Commission has estimated the European population at 76% of the Australian population in 2016,[76] while a media diversity study put it at 72% in 2021, the non-European proportion was 21% and 23% respectively, and the Aboriginal Australian population at 3% in both.[77]
Immigration minister Andrew Giles had pledged to incorporate a question on ethnicity into the 2026 Australian census.[78] However in 2024 the ABS decided against collecting data on ethnicity.[79]
Australian and foreign born population pyramid in 2021
In 2019, 30% of the Australian resident population, or 7,529,570 people, were born overseas.[80]
Australia's population has quadrupled since the end of World War I,[81] much of this increase from immigration. Australia has the world's eighth-largest immigrant population, with immigrants accounting for 30% of the population, a higher proportion than in any other nation with a population of over 10 million.[80][82] Most immigrants are skilled,[83] but the immigration quota includes categories for family members and refugees.[83]
The following table shows Australia's population by country of birth as estimated by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in 2023. It shows only countries or regions or birth with a population of over 100,000 residing in Australia.
^In fertility rates, 2.1 and above is a stable population and has been marked blue, 2 and below leads to an aging population and the result is that the population decreases.
^Only countries with 100,000 or more are listed here.
^The Australian Bureau of Statistics source lists England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland separately although they are all part of the United Kingdom. These should not be combined as they are not combined in the source.
^ abIn accordance with the Australian Bureau of Statistics source, Mainland China, Taiwan and the Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macau are listed separately.
As of 2020, 29.8% of Australia's population was born overseas and 76% as of 2016 had European ancestry. The percentage of Australians with European backgrounds has been declining since the 1960s and 1970s, which is around the time the White Australia policy was abolished.
Percentage of people who speak the English language at home in 2016
The vast majority of Australians speak English at home, with the exception of some Aboriginal Australians and first-generation immigrants.
Although Australia has no official language, English has always been the de facto national language and the only common tongue.[85]Australian English is a major variety of the language, with a distinctive accent and lexicon,[86] and differs slightly from other varieties of English in grammar and spelling.[87]General Australian serves as the standard variety.
At the 2021 census English was the only language spoken in the homes of 72% of the population. The next most common languages spoken at home are Mandarin Chinese (2.7%), Arabic (1.4%), Vietnamese (1.3%), and Cantonese (1.2%).[74] Considerable proportions of first- and second-generation immigrants are bilingual.
Over 250 Indigenous Australian languages are thought to have existed at the time of first European contact; fewer than 20 are still in daily use by all age groups.[88][89] About 110 others are spoken exclusively by older people.[89] At the time of the 2006 census, 52,000 Indigenous Australians, representing 12% of the Indigenous population, reported that they spoke an Indigenous language at home.[90]
Australia has its own sign language, Auslan. The Australian Bureau of Statistics included Auslan as an option for the first time in the 2021 census when asking which language was used at home.[91][92] According to the census, it is the main language of about 16,000 deaf people.[92]
The Australian Bureau of Statistics 2001 Census Dictionary statement on religious affiliation states the purpose for gathering such information:
Data on religious affiliation are used for such purposes as planning educational facilities, aged persons' care and other social services provided by religion-based organisations; the location of church buildings; the assigning of chaplains to hospitals, prisons, armed services and universities; the allocation of time on public radio and other media; and sociological research.
Historically, Australian Aboriginal religion and mythology was the prevalent belief system in Australia until around 1840, when European Australians first outnumbered indigenous Australians. For a period, in the 19th and 20th centuries, Australia was majority Protestant with a large Catholic minority.[95][96] Catholics first outnumbered Anglicans in the 1986 census.[97] As a result of this history, while Australia has no official religion and "no religion" constitutes the largest group by religious identification, the various governments of Australia refer to the Christian God in their ceremonies, as do the various Australian Courts.[98] In all censuses since 1991, the percentage of Christians has been steadily decreasing, while the percentage of non-religious has been increasing.[99]
As in many Western countries, the level of active participation in religious services is lower than would be indicated by the proportion of the population identifying themselves as affiliated with a religion; weekly attendance at Christian church services is about 1.5 million, or about 7.5% of the population.[100] Christian charitable organisations, hospitals and schools play a prominent role in welfare and education services. The Catholic education system is the second biggest sector after government schools, with more than 795,000 students (and around 20 per cent of all secondary school enrolments).[101]
^Lowest range value as it only represents the percentage of Australians who nominated at least one European Ancestry. This is likely an undercount and should incorporate the additional Australians who nominated only Australian as an ancestry.
^Due to the option to nominate up to two ancestries, the total amount of those that nominated an Anglo-Celtic Ancestry is lower than the summation of each individual ancestry
^Due to the option to nominate up to two ancestries, the total amount of those that nominated a Southern & Eastern European Ancestry is lower than the summation of each individual ancestry
^The Australian Bureau of Statistics has stated that most who nominate "Australian" as their ancestry have at least partial Anglo-Celtic ancestry.[3]
^Due to the option to nominate up to two ancestries, the total amount of those that nominated an Asian Ancestry is lower than the summation of each individual ancestry
^Likely an overcount in terms of Australians of Sub-Saharan descent/ethnicity as this figure includes ancestries such as South African which is predominantly made up of South Africans of European descent
^Those who nominated their ancestry as "Australian Aboriginal". Does not include Torres Strait Islanders. This relates to nomination of ancestry and is distinct from persons who identify as Indigenous (Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander) which is a separate question.
^Indigenous identification is separate to the ancestry question on the Australian Census and persons identifying as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander may identify any ancestry.
^"Population clock and pyramid". Australian Bureau of Statistics website. Commonwealth of Australia. Retrieved 5 March 2024. The population estimate shown is automatically calculated daily at 00:00 UTC and is based on data obtained from the population clock on the date shown in the citation.
^Briscoe, Gordon; Smith, Len (2002). The Aboriginal Population Revisited: 70,000 years to the present. Canberra, Australia: Aboriginal History Inc. p. 12. ISBN978-0-9585637-6-5.
^"The Beach". Australian Government: Culture Portal. Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts, Commonwealth of Australia. 17 March 2008. Archived from the original on 26 February 2010.
^United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, (2015). 'International Migration' in International migrant stock 2015. Accessed from International migrant stock 2015: maps on 24 May 2017
