Mandarin
3,383 speakers
Mandarin is spoken by 3,383 of our residents at home, 6.2% of Hobart.
We are Hobart
19 per cent.
About 19 in every 100 Hobart residents speak a language other than English at home, across 96 languages.
- Our population
- 54,181
- Speak another language
- 10,473
- Languages at home
- 96
- Growth since last census
- +50.1%
10k of us — 19.3% — speak a language other than English at home, most often Mandarin, Nepali and Cantonese. A share this size is easy to design around by accident, which is precisely how it gets designed out.
In Tasmania
#1
for share of residents speaking a language other than English at home, of 29 Tasmania councils — a ranking Hobart has held through successive censuses. #105 of 540 nationally.
What makes our community ours
Nepali
1,025 speakers
Nepali is spoken by 1,025 of our residents at home, 1.9% of Hobart.
Cantonese
610 speakers
Cantonese is spoken by 610 of our residents at home, 1.1% of Hobart.
The languages of Hobart
96 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
Nepali
+492.5% since last census
We share this portrait because Hobart is, genuinely, not an “average” council — the share here is 2.5 times the Tasmania figure. Services designed for the median Tasmania 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 492.5% since the last census, to 1,025 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
26.3% of us were born overseas, across 109 countries.
- 01China (excludes SARs and Taiwan)2,969+74.2%
- 02England2,172+4.7%
- 03India1,316+123%
- 04Nepal975+521%
- 05New Zealand584-1.8%
- 06United States of America445+28.2%
- 07Malaysia419-12.5%
- 08Vietnam336+265%
- 09Hong Kong (SAR of China)293+51.8%
- 10South Africa286+11.7%
What we believe
Reported affiliation in Hobart at the 2021 Census, with the change since 2016.
- 01No religion or secular beliefs30,540+27.8%
- 02Christianity16,596-12.5%
- 03Hinduism1,807+182%
- 04Buddhism1,161+36.7%
- 05Islam1,006+43.1%
- 06Judaism79+259%
Our suburbs
Our linguistic character changes street by street. Click through to any of our 16 suburbs for its own portrait: the languages spoken there, the communities calling it home.
- DynnyrneTop language — Mandarin34%560
- HobartTop language — Mandarin29%965
- Sandy BayTop language — Mandarin26%3,083
- New Town (Tas.)Top language — Nepali20%1,322
- North HobartTop language — Mandarin19%508
- Battery PointTop language — Mandarin19%395
- Tolmans HillTop language — Mandarin18%116
- Lenah ValleyTop language — Mandarin17%1,132
- Mount NelsonTop language — Mandarin17%454
- Glebe (Tas.)Top language — Mandarin15%83
- South HobartTop language — Mandarin13%733
- Mount Stuart (Tas.)Top language — Mandarin13%340
- West HobartTop language — Mandarin12%739
- RidgewayTop language — Spanish7%15
- Fern TreeTop language — French4%28
- Queens Domain0%0
- 16 suburbs in Hobart. Percentage is residents speaking a language other than English at home; the figure beneath it is how many people that is.
Where we are
Hobart 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
- Hobart
- 19.3%
- Tasmania
- 7.8%
- Australia
- 21.3%
19.3% of Hobart residents speak a language other than English at home, against 7.8% for Tasmania 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. 19.3% is 10,473 residents as a share of all 54,181 of us. A further 2,371 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 23.7%, which is a larger number and a weaker claim. Measured only across the residents who answered, the share is 20.2%. If you have seen a higher figure quoted for Hobart, 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 Hobart 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 Hobart.