Population of the United Kingdom: by ethnic group, April 2001
The majority of the UK population in 2001 were White (92 per cent). The remaining 4.6 million (or 7.9 per cent) people belonged to other ethnic groups.
Indians were the largest of these groups, followed by Pakistanis, those of Mixed ethnic backgrounds, Black Caribbeans, Black Africans and Bangladeshis. The remaining minority ethnic groups each accounted for less than 0.5 per cent of the UK population and together accounted for a further 1.4 per cent.
The non-White population: by ethnic group, April 2001, UK
Around half of the non-White population were Asians of Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi or other Asian origin. A further quarter were Black, that is Black Caribbean, Black African or Other Black. Fifteen per cent of the non-White population were from the Mixed ethnic group. About a third of this group were from White and Black Caribbean backgrounds.
There were almost 691,000 White Irish people in Great Britain accounting for 1 per cent of the GB population.
In Great Britain the number of people who came from an ethnic group other than White grew by 53 per cent between 1991 and 2001, from 3.0 million in 1991 to 4.6 million in 2001. In 1991 ethnic group data were not collected on the Northern Ireland Census.
03/02/05: Updates have been made to the download data for this article. Please see correction notice for further details.
Sources: Census, April 1991 and 2001, Office for National Statistics; Census, April 2001, General Register Office for Scotland; Census, April 2001, Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency.