The West Midlands is by far the most ethnically diverse English region outside London, according to the 2001 census data. Nearly one in seven of its population (13.9%) are from ethnic groups other than White British.

Nearly 5.3 million people lived in the region at the time of the last census. It covers a geographical area of 13,004 square kilometres, and has a population density of 405 people per square kilometres.

• Profile of the West Midlands region, including data on population, health, housing and employment (Office for National Statistics website)

The West Midlands is the only English region, apart from London, where the proportion of residents from the White British group falls below the national average of 87%.

Birmingham, England's second largest city and the main population centre in the West Midlands, is second only to the capital in terms of its ethnic diversity. With nearly 200,000 Asian and 60,000 black residents, Birmingham is home to more people from these groups than most entire regions of England (excluding London, only the Yorkshire and The Humber region has more Asian residents, and none has more black residents).

Population by ethnic group

West Midlands

Population: 5,267,308

Ethnic group/sub-group		Population	Proportion compared to national average
White		4,674,296	88.7% 90.9%
	British	4,537,892	86.1% 86.9%
	Irish	73,136	1.38% 1.27%
	Other	63,268	1.20% 2.66%
Mixed		73,225	1.39% 1.30%
	White and Black Caribbean	39,782	0.75% 0.47%
	White and Black African	3,683	0.06% 0.15%
	White and Asian	18,160	0.34% 0.37%
	Other mixed	11,600	0.22% 0.30%
Asian		385,573	7.32% 4.57%
	Indian	178,691	3.39% 2.09%
	Pakistani	154,550	2.93% 1.43%
	Bangladeshi	31,401	0.59% 0.56%
	Other Asian	20,931	0.39% 0.48%
Black		104,032	1.97% 2.30%
	Caribbean	82,282	1.56% 1.14%
	African	11,985	0.22% 0.96%
	Other Black	9,765	0.18% 0.19%
Chinese		16,099	0.30% 0.44%
Other ethnic group		14,083	0.26% 0.43%

Source: Census 2001, Office for National Statistics

There are nearly 400,000 people of south Asian origin living in the West Midlands (7.3% of all residents). The region is home to one in six of all Asians in Britain.

Aside from Birmingham, where 20% of the population is Asian, there are also very large Asian communities in Wolverhampton, where people from this group form 14% of the local population, and in Coventry (11%). There are more Pakistanis living in the West Midlands - 155,000 - than in any other English region, London included.

Across the entire region, the population is split fairly evenly between Indians and Pakistanis; at town and city level, though, the tendency is for one group to predominate over the other. In Birmingham, for example, the ratio of Pakistanis to Indians is two to one, while in Wolverhampton there are ten times as many Indians as Pakistanis.

In terms of its black population, the West Midlands is also second only to London, both numerically (104,000 people) and as a proportion of all residents (2%). The latter figure is nearly twice that of the next region in the list, the South East.

Fifteen percent of all Black Caribbeans living in Britain live here, but only a couple of towns and cities, such as Birmingham and Wolverhampton, have black populations (4.6% and 6.1% of all residents, respectively) significantly above the national average for England.

Nowhere else in the country has a black population so dominated by the Black Caribbean group; here, they outnumber people of African descent by more than seven to one (contrast this with London, where the Black African population has recently increased to a point where it now exceeds the number of Black Caribbean residents)

Most other ethnic minority groups are represented in the West Midlands in similar proportions to other regions of England. There is, however, a much higher percentage of people from the Mixed White and Black Caribbean group than the national average - nearly 40,000 people, or 0.8% of all residents. In Wolverhampton and Birmingham, this figure is even higher, at between 1.5% and 2%; across the whole of England, only a few inner London boroughs have marginally higher proportions of this group.

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