Sri Lankan Census Data derived from the 2016 census on people in Australia of Sri Lankan decent

Sri Lankan communities snapshot

Demographics

In the 2016 Census, 150,880 people in Australia identified with a Sri Lankan ancestry, the majority, an estimated 105,000 were Sinhalese and an estimated 45,000 were Tamil.

In addition and not part of the total above, there were also an estimated 20,000 people of Burgher ancestry (part Portuguese, Dutch, German or British).

Birthplace

In the 2016 Census, 98,340 people who identified with a Sri Lankan ancestry were born in Sri Lanka, followed by 41,075 people who were born in Australia, 2,716 who were born in Malaysia, 1,713 who were born in England and 1,160 who were born in Singapore.

Language

In the 2016 Census, 61,348 people who identified with a Sri Lankan ancestry indicated that they spoke Sinhalese at home, followed by 51,100 people who spoke English at home, and 34,147 who spoke Tamil at home.

Religion

In the 2016 Census, 54,146 people who identified with a Sri Lankan ancestry indicated their religion as Buddhism, followed by 48,830 as Christianity, and 29,073 as Hinduism. There xwere 11,325 people who claimed no religion.

Most Christians and Buddhists are Sinhalese, while Hindus are mainly Tamil.

Location

In the 2016 Census, people who identified with a Sri Lankan ancestry mainly resided in:

Victoria (75,595)
New South Wales (40,100)
Queensland (13,515)
Western Australia (11,171)
South Australia (5,036)
Australian Capital Territory (3,924).

Prepared using 2016 Census data from ABS TableBuilder, on 3 July 2017. Figures can vary on date prepared as ABS applies random adjustments to avoid the release of confidential data. Tables were run on Sri Lankan Tamil, Sri Lankan, Tamil, nfd and Sinhalese ancestries. Of Tamil, nfd numbers, those born in India (3266) were excluded while smaller numbers born in Malaysia were small enough not to be factored in calculations, while those born in Australia were all included as most of their parents were born in Sri Lanka, and the small numbers whose father (628) or mother (610) were born in India were also included, being small enough not to be factored in calculations.

Ancestry rather than country of birth is a preferable marker of the size of a community or communities as this includes the second and later generations born in Australia.