We are Canning

42 per cent.

Nearly 42 in every 100 Canning residents speak a language other than English at home. It is among the highest shares of any council in Western Australia.

Our population
87,644
Speak another language
36,613
Languages at home
138
Growth since last census
+13.7%

Mandarin, Cantonese and Punjabi are spoken here in numbers that shape how the place works. 37k of us — 41.8% — speak a language other than English at home, so an English-only notice reaches barely half the households it was addressed to.

In Western Australia

#3

of 137 Western Australia councils for the share of residents speaking a language other than English at home. #44 of 540 nationally.

What makes our community ours

Mandarin

8,482 speakers

Mandarin is spoken by 8,482 of our residents at home, 9.7% of Canning.

Cantonese

2,802 speakers

Cantonese is spoken by 2,802 of our residents at home, 3.2% of Canning.

Punjabi

2,752 speakers

Punjabi is spoken by 2,752 of our residents at home, 3.1% of Canning.

The languages of Canning

138 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 Canning, covering 28,709 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
    Mandarin
    8,482+9.6%
  2. 02
    Cantonese
    2,802+4.4%
  3. 03
    Punjabi
    2,752+76.1%
  4. 04
    Malayalam
    1,580+26.0%
  5. 05
    Indonesian
    1,536+3.1%
  6. 06
    Arabic
    1,329+19.5%
  7. 07
    Urdu
    1,235+60.8%
  8. 08
    Hindi
    1,231+7.4%
  9. 09
    Tamil
    1,178+36.2%
  10. 10
    Korean
    1,173+1.9%

Fastest-growing among us

Nepali

+114.7% since last census

We share this portrait because Canning is, genuinely, not an “average” council — the share here is 2.4 times the Western Australia figure. Services designed for the median Western Australia 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.

Nepali grew 114.7% since the last census, to 833 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

49.2% of us were born overseas, across 138 countries.

  1. 01
    India
    7,117+36.3%
  2. 02
    Malaysia
    5,233+7.1%
  3. 03
    China (excludes SARs and Taiwan)
    4,161-1.7%
  4. 04
    England
    4,051-9.6%
  5. 05
    Indonesia
    1,647+10.8%
  6. 06
    Singapore
    1,626+3.2%
  7. 07
    New Zealand
    1,607-5.5%
  8. 08
    Philippines
    1,528-4.0%
  9. 09
    Sri Lanka
    1,326+8.9%
  10. 10
    Korea, Republic of (South)
    1,017+4.3%

What we believe

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

  1. 01
    Christianity
    32,755-11.0%
  2. 02
    No religion or secular beliefs
    30,084+26.8%
  3. 03
    Islam
    6,509+28.2%
  4. 04
    Hinduism
    5,664+46.3%
  5. 05
    Buddhism
    5,593+15.1%
  6. 06
    Judaism
    16-11.1%

Our suburbs

Our linguistic character changes street by street. Click through to any of our 14 suburbs for its own portrait: the languages spoken there, the communities calling it home.

Where we are

Canning 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

Canning
41.8%
Western Australia
17.3%
Australia
21.3%

41.8% of Canning residents speak a language other than English at home, against 17.3% for Western Australia 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. 41.8% is 36,613 residents as a share of all 87,644 of us. A further 4,476 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 46.9%, which is a larger number and a weaker claim. Measured only across the residents who answered, the share is 44.0%. If you have seen a higher figure quoted for Canning, 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 Canning 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 Canning.