Wales is much less ethnically diverse than England; people from ethnic minorities made up only 4% of its population in 2001, compared to 13% for England.

It is also less diverse than Scotland, although like-for-like comparisons are difficult, because Scotland uses a different system of ethnic classification.

Wales is one of the three countries that makes up Britain, together with England and Scotland. It is the smallest of the three, both in terms of its physical size and its population. At the time of the 2001 census, there were 2.9 million people living in Wales across an area of 20,779 square kilometres. Its population density of 140 people per square kilometre is lower than any region of England.

• Profile of Wales, including data on population, health, housing and employment (Office for National Statistics website)

The population distribution within Wales is very uneven, as it combines a few large population centres with large areas of sparsely inhabited, mostly rural land. Cardiff, its capital city, is home to more than half of all black people living in Wales, and just under half of its total Asian population. Wales has fewer foreign-born residents than any other nation or region in Britain - just 2.7% of the total population - and also recorded the smallest increase in people born abroad at the 2001 census.

Population by ethnic group

Wales

Population: 2,903,085

Ethnic group/sub-group		Population	Proportion of all residents
White		2,841,505	97.8%
	British	2,786,605	95.9%
	Irish	17,689	0.60%
	Other	37,211	1.28%
Mixed		17,661	0.60%
	White and Black Caribbean	5,996	0.20%
	White and Black African	2,413	0.08%
	White and Asian	5,001	0.17%
	Other mixed	4,251	0.14%
Asian		25,448	0.87%
	Indian	8,261	0.28%
	Pakistani	8,287	0.28%
	Bangladeshi	5,436	0.18%
	Other Asian	3,464	0.11%
Black		7,069	0.24%
	Caribbean	2,597	0.08%
	African	3,727	0.12%
	Other Black	745	0.02%
Chinese		6,267	0.21%
Other ethnic group		5,135	0.17%

Source: Census 2001, Office for National Statistics

Nearly 26,000 Asian people living in Wales in 2001, making this group the largest ethnic minority in the country. The population is split very evenly between Indians and Pakistanis, although in Cardiff there is a rapidly growing Bangladeshi population which now makes up more than a quarter of all Asians in the city. Aside from Cardiff, where 4% of all residents are Asian, the next largest concentration of this group is in Wrexham (2.6%), where Pakistanis predominate.

Although the number of black people living in Wales appears small, amounting to just over 7,000 people or a quarter of one percent of the population, there is some doubt as to whether the Census 2001 data accurately reflect the true size of the black population. For example, the Somali population in Cardiff alone is estimated at anywhere between 4,000 and 10,000 people, and is thought to be the largest concentration of people originating from this country anywhere in Britain. Unlike England, Wales has a majority African black population.

In many parts of Wales, especially in the valleys and to the north of the country, non-white people are a rare sight. In Wrexham, 99% of the population are white, and there are only 164 black people out of a total population of 128,000.

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