Melbourne''' is Australia's second largest city and has a diverse and multicultural population.
Melbourne dominated Australia's population growth for the 15th year in a row as of 2017, adding 125,424 people between 2016 and 2017, and boomed past 5 million people in 2019. Population growth is however projected to significantly decline as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and associated economic slowdown.
Melbourne has the 10th largest immigrant population among world metropolitan areas. In the 2021 census, 58.8% of residents were born in Australia. Melbourne is home to residents from 200 countries and territories, who speak over 233 languages and dialects and follow 116 religious faiths.
The earliest known inhabitants of the broad area that later became known as Melbourne were Indigenous Australians – specifically, at the time of European settlement, the Bunurong, Wurundjeri and Wathaurong tribal groups. Melbourne is still a centre of Aboriginal life — consisting of local groups and indigenous groups from other parts of Australia, as most indigenous Victorians were displaced from their traditional lands during colonization – with the Aboriginal community in the city numbering over 20,000 persons (0.6% of the population).
Demographic statistics
Although Victoria's net interstate migration has fluctuated, the Melbourne statistical division was growing by approximately 50,000 people a year in 2003. Until 2020, Melbourne had attracted the largest proportion of international overseas immigrants (48,000) finding it outpacing Sydney's international migrant intake, along with having strong interstate migration from Sydney and other capitals due to more affordable housing and cost of living, which have been two recent key factors driving Melbourne's growth.
In recent years, Melton, Wyndham, Hume and Whittlesea, part of the Melbourne statistical division, recorded the highest growth rate of all local government areas in Australia.
Melbourne's population density declined following the Second World War, with the private motor car and the lures of space and property ownership causing a suburban sprawl, mainly eastward. After much discussion both at general public and planning levels in the 1980s, the decline has reversed since the recession of the early 1990s.
The city has seen increased density in the inner and western suburbs. Since the 1970s, Victorian Government planning blueprints, such as Postcode 3000 and Melbourne 2030, have aimed to curtail the urban sprawl.
Demographic history
European settlement and Gold Rush immigration
The first European settlers in Melbourne were British and Irish. These two groups accounted for nearly all arrivals before the gold rush, and supplied most immigrants to the city until the Second World War.
Melbourne was transformed by the 1850s gold rush; within months of the discovery of gold in August 1852, the city's population had increased by nearly three-quarters, from 25,000 to 40,000 inhabitants. Thereafter, growth was exponential and by 1865, Melbourne had overtaken Sydney as Australia's most populous city.
Many Chinese, German and American nationals were to be found on the goldfields and subsequently in Melbourne. The various nationalities involved in the Eureka Stockade revolt nearby give some indication of the migration flows in the second half of the nineteenth century.
Post-war immigration
In the aftermath of the Second World War, Melbourne experienced unprecedented inflows from Mediterranean Europe and the Balkans, primarily Greece, Italy, Yugoslavia, and West Asia, mostly from Lebanon, Cyprus, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia. Since the end of the White Australia policy in 1973 during the Vietnam War, the city has received a larger wave of primarily Asian immigration and refugees, with Vietnam, China, India the largest sources of immigrants in the 21st century.
Multiculturalism
In 2018, the population of the Melbourne metropolitan area was 4,963,349.
Although Victoria's net interstate migration has fluctuated, the population of the Melbourne statistical division has grown by about 70,000 people a year since 2005. Until 2020, Melbourne had attracted the largest proportion of international overseas immigrants (48,000) finding it outpacing Sydney's international migrant intake on percentage, along with having strong interstate migration from Sydney and other capitals due to more affordable housing and cost of living.
In recent years, Melton, Wyndham and Casey, part of the Melbourne statistical division, recorded the highest growth rate of all local government areas in Australia.