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This page was last updated on 24 November 2006

Loch Lomond

Ethnicity profiles

Scotland


The most recent national survey of Scotland's population, the 2001 census, revealed that almost 98% of the country's inhabitants were white. However, it also showed that Scotland's number of foreign-born residents is increasing faster than that of England or Wales.

At a glance...

Out of every 1,000 people, on average:

  • 880 are White Scottish
  • 74 are White (non-Scottish) British
  • 25 are from other white groups, including Irish
  • 11 are Asian
  • 3 people are of mixed race
  • 3 people are Chinese
  • 2 people are Black

In 2001, 3.3% of people living in Scotland were born abroad, up from 2.5% in 1991.

Source: General Register Office for Scotland, BBC

Scotland had a population of just over 5 million people at the time of the 2001 census. It covers an area of 78,772 square kilometres, meaning that, on average, just 64 people live on each square kilometres of Scottish soil (for England the figure is 377, in Wales 140).

Between 1991 and 2001, Scotland's foreign-born population rose by 34%, compared with 29% in England and 24% in Wales.

The exact size of the other ethnic minority populations in Scotland today - five years on from the census - is a matter of some debate. The CRE in Scotland believes that recent factors, such as migration from recent EU accession countries - notably Poland - means that the true proportion of ethnic minority residents in Scotland is likely to be closer to 4%; twice that of the Census 2001 figure. This mirrors the proportion of school pupils in Scotland who are from an ethnic minority background, according to a school census carried out in September 2005 by the Scottish Executive.

The ethnic group classifications used in Scotland's census differ slightly from those in England and Wales, most notably in that white Scottish people and other white British people (mostly people from England and Wales) are counted separately. This latter category forms the largest ethnic minority group in Scotland (7.4% of the population, or roughly one on 14 people), although there is considerable variation from area to area; in Edinburgh, one in nine people (11.4%) are from this Other White British category, while in Glasgow the figure is as low as one in 30 (3.6%).

Scotland

Population: 5,062,011

Ethnic group/sub-groupPopulationProportion of all residents
White 4,960,334 97.9%
 Scottish4,459,071 88.0%
 Other White British373,685 7.38%
 White Irish49,428 0.97%
 Other78,150 1.54%
Asian 55,007 1.08%
 Indian15,037 0.29%
 Pakistani31,793 0.62%
 Bangladeshi1,981 0.03%
 Other South Asian6,196 0.12%
Mixed 12,764 0.25%
Black 8,025 0.15%
 Caribbean1,778 0.03%
 African5,118 0.10%
 Black Scottish or Other Black1,129 0.02%
Chinese 16,310 0.32%
Other ethnic group 9,571 0.18%

Source: General Register Office for Scotland, Office for National Statistics

Since the 2001 Census was carried out, the Scottish Executive has actively encouraged migration to Scotland through its Fresh Talent initiative. This was partly born from fears that a shrinking population in Scotland would hinder its economic competitiveness.

Action from an Old Firm derby between Celtic and Rangers

Unsurprisingly, given its close proximity to Northern Ireland and Eire, Glasgow has a sizeable Irish population which has left a strong cultural imprint on the city. There is, however, a long history of sectarian conflict; in few places is this more evident than in the 'Old Firm' fixture between Glasgow's two great footballing arch rivals, Celtic and Rangers, which have traditionally enjoyed partisan support from the Catholic and Protestant sectors of the city's population.

During the two years from June 2004, an estimated 32,000 people from eastern Europe came to live and work in Scotland; 20,000 of whom were Poles. For context, in the 2001 census, the White Other group - within which many of these new migrants are likely to belong - accounting for just 78,000 people in the whole of Scotland. Within this total are small numbers of American- and Dutch-born residents; 800 people from the Netherlands alone live in the Aberdeen area, where the Dutch oil company Shell operates a refinery.

Given is close proximity to Ireland, it is not surprising that Scotland has a relatively large Irish population. Nearly 50,000 people indicated this as their ethnic origin in the 2001 census. In Glasgow, which is the city physically closest to the Irish mainland, Irish people make up 2% of the local population.

Aside from the Other White British, the next largest ethnic minority group in Scotland is Asian. Although Asian residents make up barely more than 1% of the population as a whole (55,000 people), in some inner-city areas they are highly concentrated. In parts of central Glasgow, such as Pollokshields, as much as 40% of the local population are of Pakistani origin. This city has more than 15,000 Pakistani residents; very nearly half of all people from this group living in Scotland. Unlike in England, where Indians form the largest Asian sub-group, in Scotland it is Pakistanis who predominate, by nearly two-to-one.

Scotland has very few black residents; around 8,000, or 0.2% of the population. Even where people from this group are most strongly concentrated (in Perth), they account for rather less than half of one percent of the local population. Black Africans outnumber Black Caribbeans by almost three-to-one; in England, the latter is slightly more populous than the former. The Chinese population is twice as large as the black population, and proportionally almost the same as in England; only this and the White Irish group are proportionally similarly represented in the population of both countries.

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Jigsaw made up of faces of people from different racial groups