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Townsville, Queensland

The languages of Townsville beyond English

Most of Townsville speaks English at home, but 6.6 per cent of residents don't, the 2021 Census shows, and Tagalog leads among them. The share nationally is at least twice Townsville's. Of the languages with a real base, Swahili rose fastest after 2016.

Residents
190,351
Speak another language
12,547
Languages at home
138
Change since 2016
+14.8%

Which languages other than English are spoken most in Townsville?

Tagalog has the most speakers, though every group here is small.

Include First Nations languagesShowing multicultural languagesLEXIGO works in multicultural communication. First Nations languages are optional to display and are not counted in the multicultural rankings.

Tagalog

905 speakers

Its speaker count has grown by more than a quarter since 2016.

Malayalam

791 speakers

It has grown by more than a quarter since 2016.

Italian

546 speakers

Used at home by fewer than one in 100 residents.

What are Townsville's five largest language communities?

Swahili has grown by more than half since 2016.

The largest five communities, beside their change on the previous census.

  1. 01
    Tagalog
    905+37.5%
  2. 02
    Malayalam
    791+41.8%
  3. 03
    Italian
    546-20.3%
  4. 04
    Mandarin
    482-5.7%
  5. 05
    Swahili
    467+97.0%

How big is Townsville's multilingual community next to Queensland?

Townsville's share is under the share for Queensland, though not by much. That puts Townsville in the upper half of Queensland's councils.

Townsville
6.6%
Queensland
12.2%
Australia
21.3%

Shares are calculated the same way for each area, so the bars compare directly.

The full diversity index, with Townsville highlighted.

How does the share change across Townsville's suburbs?

Douglas tops the list, but the spread across 73 suburbs is narrow.

Pick a suburb to see its languages in full.

What do birthplace and religion add in Townsville?

The largest group born overseas comes from England.

Country of birth

11.9% born overseas, across 139 countries.

  1. 01
    England
    4,752-3.4%
  2. 02
    New Zealand
    4,027-5.7%
  3. 03
    Philippines
    1,978+31.1%
  4. 04
    India
    1,748+32.9%
  5. 05
    South Africa
    1,008+9.0%
  6. 06
    Papua New Guinea
    795-4.1%
  7. 07
    Germany
    552-6.8%
  8. 08
    Scotland
    530+5.8%
  9. 09
    United States of America
    456+5.1%
  10. 10
    China (excludes SARs and Taiwan)
    3850%

Religious affiliation

Reported affiliation, with the change since 2016.

  1. 01
    Christianity
    91,584-16.2%
  2. 02
    No religion or secular beliefs
    77,947+44.4%
  3. 03
    Buddhism
    1,513+2.2%
  4. 04
    Hinduism
    1,317+39.2%
  5. 05
    Islam
    960+1.7%
  6. 06
    Judaism
    49+6.5%

Data: ABS Census of Population and Housing 2021, language used at home, summed from Statistical Area Level 2 to council. Changes are against the 2016 Census.

Blank answers matter here. 15,790 residents gave none, and they're left out of the 6.6%. Count them in and it's 14.9%; drop them from the base and it's 7.2%.

Figures for Townsville itself aren't affected by the small gap between summed suburbs and ABS national totals. Unnamed ABS categories are in every total and out of every ranked list.

Reuse these figures under CC BY 4.0 with credit to LEXIGO Language Map.

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