We are Gold Coast

13 per cent.

About 13 in every 100 Gold Coast residents speak a language other than English at home, across 153 languages.

Our population
616,177
Speak another language
77,169
Languages at home
153
Growth since last census
+27.3%

77k of us — 12.5% — speak a language other than English at home, most often Mandarin, Japanese and Portuguese. A share this size is easy to design around by accident, which is precisely how it gets designed out.

In Queensland

#17

of 76 Queensland councils for the share of residents speaking a language other than English at home. #144 of 540 nationally.

What makes our community ours

Mandarin

11,626 speakers

Mandarin is spoken by 11,626 of our residents at home, 1.9% of Gold Coast.

Japanese

5,900 speakers

Japanese is spoken by 5,900 of our residents at home, 1.0% of Gold Coast.

Portuguese

4,982 speakers

Portuguese is spoken by 4,982 of our residents at home, 0.8% of Gold Coast.

The languages of Gold Coast

153 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 Gold Coast, covering 55,130 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
    11,626+28.4%
  2. 02
    Japanese
    5,900+5.1%
  3. 03
    Portuguese
    4,982+116%
  4. 04
    Spanish
    4,771+60.2%
  5. 05
    Korean
    3,711+9.0%
  6. 06
    Cantonese
    3,118+9.8%
  7. 07
    Punjabi
    2,965+112%
  8. 08
    Italian
    2,052-1.6%
  9. 09
    French
    1,843-4.8%
  10. 10
    German
    1,792-12.4%

Fastest-growing among us

Telugu

+175.5% since last census

We share this portrait because Gold Coast is, genuinely, not an “average” council. Services designed for the median Queensland 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.

Telugu grew 175.5% since the last census, to 507 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

26.8% of us were born overseas, across 167 countries.

  1. 01
    New Zealand
    44,501+0.9%
  2. 02
    England
    30,587+6.5%
  3. 03
    China (excludes SARs and Taiwan)
    8,544+25.6%
  4. 04
    South Africa
    8,435+26.6%
  5. 05
    India
    6,792+71.2%
  6. 06
    Philippines
    5,326+37.2%
  7. 07
    Brazil
    4,445+144%
  8. 08
    Japan
    4,200+5.0%
  9. 09
    Korea, Republic of (South)
    3,289+7.6%
  10. 10
    Scotland
    3,193+4.4%

What we believe

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

  1. 01
    Christianity
    274,755-7.3%
  2. 02
    No religion or secular beliefs
    273,120+52.3%
  3. 03
    Buddhism
    8,929+2.3%
  4. 04
    Hinduism
    6,451+66.4%
  5. 05
    Islam
    5,888+35.3%
  6. 06
    Judaism
    1,213+31.0%

Our suburbs

Our linguistic character changes street by street. Click through to any of our 76 suburbs for its own portrait: the languages spoken there, the communities calling it home.

Where we are

Gold Coast 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

Gold Coast
12.5%
Queensland
12.2%
Australia
21.3%

12.5% of Gold Coast residents speak a language other than English at home, against 12.2% for Queensland 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. 12.5% is 77,169 residents as a share of all 616,177 of us. A further 37,587 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 18.6%, which is a larger number and a weaker claim. Measured only across the residents who answered, the share is 13.3%. If you have seen a higher figure quoted for Gold Coast, 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 Gold Coast 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 Gold Coast.