34.1% —
Higher than 92% of capital city areas.
- 2016: 32.3%
- 2021: 34.1%
Share of people who use a language other than English at home.
Greater Melbourne · Capital City
Language in Greater Melbourne
The languages spoken in homes across the area, beyond English.
More people in Greater Melbourne have started using a language other than English at home, with this figure rising to 34.1% in 2021. This makes the region far more linguistically diverse than the rest of Australia. While English remains the main language, a wide variety of other tongues are spoken across the city.
Languages at home
English and the largest community languages.
About 34.1% of people use another language at home, a figure that is far above the national average and rose 1.8 percentage points since 2016. This diversity is reflected in the use of Mandarin (4.3%), Vietnamese (2.3%), Greek (2.1%) and Punjabi (2.0%), while 5.4% of residents speak little or no English.
5.4% ▼ -2.8%
Higher than 92% of capital city areas.
- 2016: 5.6%
- 2021: 5.4%
Share of people who use another language at home and speak English not well or not at all. No 2011 figure — that census only asked proficiency of overseas-born residents.
Sources
- Census of Population and Housing — Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2021 (CC BY 4.0).
More for Greater Melbourne
Cite this page
Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2021). Language in Greater Melbourne [Census of Population and Housing]. CensusAtlas, used under CC BY 4.0. https://censusatlas.au/region/gccsa/2GMEL/greater-melbourne/topic/language