The most Greek-speaking suburbs in Australia revealed

Did you cognize there’s a suburb successful Australia where astir 1 successful 5 households speak Greek astatine home?

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), the suburb isn’t Oakleigh successful Melbourne, but Clemton Park successful New South Wales, adjacent Earlwood.

The ABS precocious shared a caller representation highlighting the astir Greek-speaking suburbs crossed Australia, based connected percent of households where Greek is the main connection spoken astatine home. The data, drawn from the 2021 Census, lone includes areas with much than 1,000 residents.

State by state highlights

• NSW: Clemton Park leads with 18.7 per cent (from a colonisation of 1,676).
• Victoria: Clarinda comes archetypal with 14.2 per cent — astir 1 successful 7 households.
• South Australia: Torrensville registers 11 per cent.
• Northern Territory: Wagaman records 9.8 per cent.
• Queensland: Highgate Hill stands astatine 4.1 per cent.
• ACT: Forrest records 2.1 per cent.
• Western Australia: Noranda astatine 1.5 per cent.
• Tasmania: Tranmere astatine 1.4 per cent.

Source: ABS

Where the astir Greek speakers unrecorded (absolute numbers)

When measured by total colonisation alternatively than percentage, Earlwood, NSW comes retired connected top, with 3,272 radical speaking Greek astatine home. It is followed by Reservoir (VIC), Kingsgrove (NSW), Preston (VIC), and Marrickville (NSW).

By comparison, Oakleigh and its surrounding suburbs — while iconic for their Greek civilization — fertile little individually but collectively still grounds precocious Greek-speaking numbers, with Oakleigh South, Oakleigh, and Oakleigh East combining for 3,070 speakers.

Greek arsenic a starring language

Excluding English, Greek remains the astir spoken connection successful dozens of suburbs crossed the country. In Oakleigh, for example, 13.3 per cent of residents reported speaking Greek astatine home, placing it well up of Mandarin (6.8 per cent). Similar trends were observed successful Oakleigh East, Oakleigh South, Williamstown, Newport, Yarraville, Port Melbourne, and Albert Park.

National picture

Across Australia, 229,643 radical said they spoke Greek astatine location successful the 2021 Census, making it the sixth astir spoken connection nationwide (seventh wide including English). This represented a small diminution of astir 8,000 speakers since 2016.

Victoria remains the state with the highest concentration, with 107,158 speakers, followed by New South Wales (78,691), South Australia (21,882), Queensland (10,475), Western Australia (4,520), Tasmania (1,126), Northern Territory (3,258), and ACT (2,527).

Greek individuality successful Australia

The ABS besides noted that successful 2021, 424,744 radical identified arsenic being of Greek inheritance (and 40,091 arsenic Cypriot), up from 2016 and 2011. This figure, however, is little than assemblage estimates which spot the Greek and Cypriot colonisation astatine betwixt 600,000–700,000.

Despite generational shifts, Greek remains the astir widely spoken Southern European connection successful Australia and continues to beryllium a marker of individuality successful some long-established and emerging diaspora communities.