Vietnamese
18,772 speakers
Vietnamese is spoken by 18,772 of our residents at home, 12.1% of Greater Dandenong.
We are Greater Dandenong
64 per cent.
Nearly 64 in every 100 Greater Dandenong residents speak a language other than English at home. It is among the highest shares of any council in Victoria.
- Our population
- 155,684
- Speak another language
- 99,332
- Languages at home
- 138
- Growth since last census
- +3.9%
Our neighbourhoods run in Vietnamese, Khmer and Mandarin as readily as they do in English. 99k of us speak a language other than English at home — a higher share than almost anywhere else in the country, and the ordinary condition of daily life here rather than an exception to it.
In Victoria
#1
for share of residents speaking a language other than English at home, of 79 Victoria councils — a ranking Greater Dandenong has held through successive censuses. #20 of 540 nationally.
What makes our community ours
Khmer
9,595 speakers
Khmer is spoken by 9,595 of our residents at home, 6.2% of Greater Dandenong.
Mandarin
6,262 speakers
Mandarin is spoken by 6,262 of our residents at home, 4.0% of Greater Dandenong.
The languages of Greater Dandenong
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
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.
Fastest-growing among us
Malay
+528.0% since last census
We share this portrait because Greater Dandenong is, genuinely, not an “average” council — the share here is 2.4 times the Victoria figure. Services designed for the median Victoria 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.
Malay grew 528.0% since the last census, to 1,752 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
56.9% of us were born overseas, across 142 countries.
- 01Vietnam14,741+11.1%
- 02India11,944-3.5%
- 03Cambodia8,689+27.1%
- 04Sri Lanka6,281-0.6%
- 05China (excludes SARs and Taiwan)4,911+7.8%
- 06Afghanistan4,7630%
- 07Malaysia3,352+134%
- 08Philippines2,594+26.8%
- 09Pakistan2,358+13.4%
- 10New Zealand1,957-11.9%
What we believe
Reported affiliation in Greater Dandenong at the 2021 Census, with the change since 2016.
- 01Christianity52,820-7.2%
- 02No religion or secular beliefs33,165+27.2%
- 03Buddhism25,089+11.2%
- 04Islam22,542+18.7%
- 05Hinduism7,981+5.0%
- 06Judaism108+9.1%
Our suburbs
Our linguistic character changes street by street. Click through to any of our 9 suburbs for its own portrait: the languages spoken there, the communities calling it home.
- Springvale (Vic.)Top language — Vietnamese75%16,491
- Springvale SouthTop language — Vietnamese72%8,926
- DandenongTop language — Hazaraghi66%19,329
- Noble ParkTop language — Vietnamese64%20,349
- KeysboroughTop language — Vietnamese60%17,835
- Dandenong NorthTop language — Greek55%12,273
- Noble Park NorthTop language — Greek55%4,022
- Dandenong SouthTop language — Serbian17%18
- BangholmeTop language — Italian12%89
- 9 suburbs in Greater Dandenong. Percentage is residents speaking a language other than English at home; the figure beneath it is how many people that is.
Where we are
Greater Dandenong 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
- Greater Dandenong
- 63.8%
- Victoria
- 26.6%
- Australia
- 21.3%
63.8% of Greater Dandenong residents speak a language other than English at home, against 26.6% for Victoria 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. 63.8% is 99,332 residents as a share of all 155,684 of us. A further 9,999 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 70.2%, which is a larger number and a weaker claim. Measured only across the residents who answered, the share is 68.2%. If you have seen a higher figure quoted for Greater Dandenong, 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 Greater Dandenong 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 Greater Dandenong.