Glasgow

Glasgow is Scotland's most diverse city. It has a higher proportion of ethnic minority residents than the average for Scotland in every Census category, with the perhaps surprising exception of the Other White British group.

This group, which comprises most of the English-born people living in Scotland, is represented here at less than half the national average - just 3.6% compared to 7.4% nationally.

As the closest port city in Britain to the Irish mainland, Glasgow unsurprisingly has a large Irish population. The 2001 Census reveals that there were 11,500 Irish people living in Glasgow at that time - nearly 2% of the population. The true number of people of Irish descent living in the city is likely to be much higher; nearly a third of the city's population of nearly 580,000 gave their religion as Roman Catholic in the 2001 census, which is indicative of a very large Irish ethnic and cultural influence within Glasgow.

The city has the largest non-White population in the country; 6% of all residents. There are nearly 22,000 Asians living in Glasgow, slightly more than the number of Other White British residents. This represents more than third of all Asians living in Scotland. By far the largest sub-group is Pakistani; there are more than 15,000 living in Glasgow (2.7% of all residents), more than half of all people from this group in Scotland. In several areas clustered around the city centre, such as Maxwell Park, Kingston, Strathbungo and - especially - Pollokshields, Pakistanis form at least 10% of the local population, and in East Pollokshields that figure rises to 40%.

More than a quarter of all Indians living in Scotland live in Glasgow (4,000 people, or 0.7% of all residents). More than half are Sikhs, and the Indian population is particularly concentrated around the Govan, Kelvin and Maryhill districts of the city.

• Profile of the Glasgow metropolitan area, including data on population, health, housing and employment (Scotland's Census Results Online website)

Glasgow

Population: 577,869

Ethnic group/sub-group		Population	Proportion compared to national average
White		545,909	94.4% 97.9%
	Scottish	503,164	87.0% 88.0%
	Other White British	20,934	3.62% 7.38%
	White Irish	11,467	1.98% 0.97%
	Other	10,344	1.79% 1.54%
Asian		21,760	3.76% 1.08%
	Indian	4,173	0.72% 0.29%
	Pakistani	15,330	2.65% 0.62%
	Bangladeshi	237	0.04% 0.03%
	Other South Asian	2,020	0.34% 0.12%
Mixed		2,046	0.35% 0.25%
Black		1,792	0.31% 0.15%
	Caribbean	302	0.05% 0.03%
	African	1,257	0.21% 0.10%
	Black Scottish or Other Black	233	0.04% 0.02%
Chinese		3,876	0.67% 0.32%
Other ethnic group		2,036	0.35% 0.18%

Source: Census 2001, Office for National Statistics

Top of this page