We are Blacktown

45 per cent.

Nearly 45 in every 100 Blacktown residents speak a language other than English at home. It is among the highest shares of any council in New South Wales.

Our population
384,385
Speak another language
174,811
Languages at home
163
Growth since last census
+33.2%

Punjabi, Hindi and Tagalog are spoken here in numbers that shape how the place works. 175k of us — 45.5% — speak a language other than English at home, so an English-only notice reaches barely half the households it was addressed to.

In New South Wales

#11

of 128 New South Wales councils for the share of residents speaking a language other than English at home. #40 of 540 nationally.

What makes our community ours

Punjabi

20,314 speakers

Punjabi is spoken by 20,314 of our residents at home, 5.3% of Blacktown.

Hindi

17,140 speakers

Hindi is spoken by 17,140 of our residents at home, 4.5% of Blacktown.

Tagalog

14,872 speakers

Tagalog is spoken by 14,872 of our residents at home, 3.9% of Blacktown.

The languages of Blacktown

163 languages carry the conversation at home. Every one of them is spoken here.

Each block below is scaled to the number of people who speak that language at home, and tinted by how fast that community has grown since the last census.

  • Grew 50%+
  • 25%+
  • 10%+
  • Held
  • Slipped
  • Declined 10%+
  • Not comparable
The 18 most spoken languages in Blacktown, covering 134,716 speakers. Area is speakers at the 2021 Census; tint is the change since 2016. Every figure is also in the table below.

Every language, in order

Speakers at the 2021 Census, with the change since 2016. Broader ABS categories such as “Chinese, nfd” are counted in our totals but left out of this list, so the percentages can exceed the sum of the languages shown.

  1. 01
    Punjabi
    20,314+70.5%
  2. 02
    Hindi
    17,140+29.5%
  3. 03
    Tagalog
    14,872+10.4%
  4. 04
    Arabic
    11,441+14.8%
  5. 05
    Gujarati
    9,100+108%
  6. 06
    Urdu
    8,410+52.5%
  7. 07
    Filipino
    7,595+19.2%
  8. 08
    Tamil
    7,422+66.0%
  9. 09
    Mandarin
    6,781+44.7%
  10. 10
    Bengali
    4,416+33.8%

Fastest-growing among us

Kannada

+167.5% since last census

We share this portrait because Blacktown is, genuinely, not an “average” council — the share here is 1.8 times the New South Wales figure. Services designed for the median New South Wales resident arrive here in the wrong language. This almanac exists so that nobody writing policy about us — federal, state, corporate or media — can say they did not know.

Kannada grew 167.5% since the last census, to 947 speakers. A community growing at that rate is one whose translation needs are ahead of the last set of figures anyone commissioned.

Who we are, beyond language

Where we were born

42.8% of us were born overseas, across 161 countries.

  1. 01
    India
    46,191+84.9%
  2. 02
    Philippines
    25,034+14.9%
  3. 03
    New Zealand
    8,323+3.5%
  4. 04
    Fiji
    7,530+9.1%
  5. 05
    China (excludes SARs and Taiwan)
    6,066+35.3%
  6. 06
    Pakistan
    5,972+47.8%
  7. 07
    Sri Lanka
    5,577+24.6%
  8. 08
    England
    4,726-9.6%
  9. 09
    Nepal
    3,436+175%
  10. 10
    Bangladesh
    3,132+34.0%

What we believe

Reported affiliation in Blacktown at the 2021 Census, with the change since 2016.

  1. 01
    Christianity
    181,640-3.0%
  2. 02
    No religion or secular beliefs
    71,346+40.9%
  3. 03
    Hinduism
    50,458+83.1%
  4. 04
    Islam
    31,352+39.9%
  5. 05
    Buddhism
    7,292+31.0%
  6. 06
    Judaism
    80-27.3%

Our suburbs

Our linguistic character changes street by street. Click through to any of our 49 suburbs for its own portrait: the languages spoken there, the communities calling it home.

Where we are

Blacktown shaded by the share of residents speaking a language other than English at home. Boundaries are ABS ASGS 2021. See every council on one map.

In context

Blacktown
45.5%
New South Wales
25.7%
Australia
21.3%

45.5% of Blacktown residents speak a language other than English at home, against 25.7% for New South Wales and 21.3% nationally. Drawn from the 2021 Census.

Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics, Census of Population and Housing 2021, language used at home by Statistical Area Level 2, aggregated to Local Government Area. Growth compares 2021 against the 2016 Census.

How the headline share is counted. 45.5% is 174,811 residents as a share of all 384,385 of us. A further 23,872 did not state a language at all, and we do not count them as speaking one — counting every non-response as a non-English speaker would put this figure at 51.7%, which is a larger number and a weaker claim. Measured only across the residents who answered, the share is 48.5%. If you have seen a higher figure quoted for Blacktown, it is almost certainly one of those two.

Two further caveats we would rather state than bury. Summing suburbs omits residents not allocated to one — no usual address, migratory and unincorporated areas — so national totals sit a little under the ABS published figures; the Blacktown figures on this page are unaffected. And ranked language lists exclude ABS residual categories such as “Chinese, nfd”, which are not languages anyone can order a translation in; they remain inside the headline total.

Need this community reached in its own languages? Talk to us about translation in Blacktown.