Who lives in Australia

Australia is one of the most urbanised countries on earth. Roughly two-thirds of the population lives in the eight capital cities, and around 86 per cent lives in urban areas. Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane together hold close to half of all Australians.

The interior is essentially empty. Away from the coastal strip and a handful of inland regional centres and mining towns, population density falls to a few people per hundred square kilometres. This is a rainfall map more than anything else: the arid zone covers about 70 per cent of the continent.

Growth is concentrated in the outer suburbs of the big cities and in a coastal band running from the Sunshine Coast down to Wollongong, plus Perth's northern and southern corridors. Several inland regions are losing population steadily.

Australia's fertility rate has been below replacement since 1976. Population growth is therefore driven mainly by net overseas migration, which in most years contributes more than natural increase.

At the 2021 Census the largest countries of birth after Australia were England, India, China, New Zealand and the Philippines. India overtook China and New Zealand during the 2016–2021 period to become the second-largest overseas birthplace, a shift that has continued.

The composition of the intake matters as much as the total. The permanent migration program is dominated by skilled visas rather than family reunion, and separately there is a very large temporary population — international students, working holidaymakers, temporary skilled workers and New Zealand citizens — who live and work in Australia without being permanent residents. Temporary migration numbers swing far more sharply than permanent ones, which is why headline population figures moved so violently between 2020 and 2023.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are the First Peoples of the continent, with archaeological evidence of continuous occupation for at least 65,000 years. They are not one group: before 1788 there were hundreds of distinct nations with their own languages, laws and territories.

The 2021 Census counted 812,728 people identifying as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander, 3.2 per cent of the total population. The count has grown faster than birth rates alone would explain, partly because more people are identifying in the Census.

The population is younger than the national average and more likely to live outside the capital cities. The Northern Territory has the highest share by a wide margin, at around 30 per cent of its residents. Persistent gaps in life expectancy, health, education and incarceration remain, and are tracked annually under the Closing the Gap framework.

There is no official language in Australian law. English is the language of government, courts and schools. At the 2021 Census, over a fifth of people used a language other than English at home — most commonly Mandarin, Arabic, Vietnamese, Cantonese and Punjabi. Punjabi was the fastest-growing.

Around 167 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages were still in use at the 2021 Census, the majority of them classified as endangered. A small number, mainly in Arnhem Land, Central Australia and the Torres Strait, still have children learning them as first languages.

On religion, the 2021 Census recorded a decisive shift: 'no religion' became the largest single response at 38.9 per cent, ahead of Catholic at 20.0 per cent and Anglican at 9.8 per cent. Hinduism and Islam were the fastest-growing religions, both driven by migration. Christianity overall fell below half the population for the first time.

The median age is 38 and rising slowly. Around one in six Australians is aged 65 or over, and that share is projected to keep growing, which is the main driver of long-term pressure on health and aged care spending.

Household composition has shifted steadily: couple families with children remain the most common type but are no longer a majority of households, while lone-person households have grown to roughly a quarter. Average household size has fallen below 2.5 people, which by itself increases the number of dwellings the country needs at any given population.

Home ownership has fallen for younger age groups over three decades while remaining high for those over 65 — the sharpest generational divide in Australian wealth. Around a third of households rent, and rental stress is concentrated among lower-income private renters in the capital cities.