Mandarin
17,318 speakers
Mandarin is spoken by 17,318 of our residents at home, 14.1% of Manningham.
We are Manningham
Nearly 46 in every 100 Manningham residents speak a language other than English at home. It is among the highest shares of any council in Victoria.
Mandarin, Cantonese and Greek are spoken here in numbers that shape how the place works. 56k of us — 45.6% — speak a language other than English at home, so an English-only notice reaches barely half the households it was addressed to.
In Victoria
#6
of 79 Victoria councils for the share of residents speaking a language other than English at home. #39 of 540 nationally.
What makes our community ours
17,318 speakers
Mandarin is spoken by 17,318 of our residents at home, 14.1% of Manningham.
10,545 speakers
Cantonese is spoken by 10,545 of our residents at home, 8.6% of Manningham.
6,935 speakers
Greek is spoken by 6,935 of our residents at home, 5.6% of Manningham.
The languages of Manningham
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.
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
Sinhalese
+70.4% since last census
We share this portrait because Manningham is, genuinely, not an “average” council — the share here is 1.7 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.
Sinhalese grew 70.4% since the last census, to 431 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
41.8% of us were born overseas, across 124 countries.
Reported affiliation in Manningham at the 2021 Census, with the change since 2016.
Our suburbs
Our linguistic character changes street by street. Click through to any of our 10 suburbs for its own portrait: the languages spoken there, the communities calling it home.
Where we are
Manningham 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
45.6% of Manningham 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. 45.6% is 56,182 residents as a share of all 123,230 of us. A further 3,783 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 48.7%, which is a larger number and a weaker claim. Measured only across the residents who answered, the share is 47.0%. If you have seen a higher figure quoted for Manningham, 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 Manningham 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 Manningham.