Ethnicity Map of UK: Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland has a population of 1.7 million people and covers an area of 14,139 square kilometres. Its population makes up between a quarter and a third of the population of the whole of Ireland. Because of the long Catholic-Protestant conflict, Northern Ireland's growing communities of ethnic minority groups are often ignored. They are still very small, making up less than 1% – proportionally far smaller than in England where ethnic groups other than white make up 10% of the population.
The Northern Ireland conflict itself is often seen as ethnic as well as political, and Protestants generally regard themselves as British, while Catholics say they are Irish.
Gary Lightbody from Snow Patrol is from Northern Ireland
The four main ethnic minorities outside of the White Catholic and White Protestant groups in Northern Ireland are the Chinese, Indian, Pakistani and indigenous traveller communities. In the 2001 census just over 14,000 people – under 1% – said they belonged to an ethnic minority group.
The Chinese group is the largest of the ethnic minority groups, numbering just over 4,000, nearly twice the size of the Asian group, where Indians outnumber Pakistanis by two to one. The Black community is very small indeed, with under 500 Black Africans and under 300 Black Caribbeans counted in the 2001 census.
Northern Ireland in numbers
Out of every 1,000 people:
- 991 are White
- 3 are Chinese
- 2 are of mixed race
- 2 are Asian
- 1 is Black
- 1 is Irish traveller
Focus on... Anna Lo
Anna Lo is the first person from an ethnic minority in political office in Northern Ireland. In March 2007 she was elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly for South Belfast. She is also the first person born in South East Asia to be elected to any parliament in Europe. Born in Hong Kong, she had lived in Northern Ireland for 32 years before taking up her seat.
Sources: Office for National Statistics, Commission for Racial Equality
