The 2001
census allowed Australians, approaching twenty million strong, to declare what
ancestry they considered themselves to be. This subjective assessment allowed people to define what ethic group they see themselves as belonging - a
Malaysian-born
Chinese with
Australian citizenship might see themselves as Chinese first, Australian second and Malaysian third. Ethnic backgrounds that straddled different countries (eg:
Jewish,
Kurdish) could be included. People could nominate upto two ancestries.
The most commonly declared ancestries were :
Australian (6.7 million; 99% Australian born)
English (6.4 million; 82% Australian born, 13% English born)
Irish (1.9 million)
Italian (800,000)
German (742,000)
Chinese (557,000; 25% Australian born, 24% PRC born, 11% Hong Kong born)
Scottish (540,000)
Ancestries nominated by 150,000 to 499,999 Australians included:
Greek
Dutch
Lebanese
Indian
Vietnamese
Polish
Ancestries nominated by 50,000 to 149,999 Australians included:
Maltese
Filipino
New Zealander
Croatian
Serbian
Australian Aboriginal
Welsh
Macedonian
French
Spanish
Maori
Hungarian
Russian
Sinhalese
Turkish
South African
Ancestries nominated by 20,000 to 49,999 Australians included:
American
Korean
Danish
Austrian
Portuguese
Ukrainian
Japanese
Indonesian
Samoan
Egyptian
Swedish
Jewish
Swiss
Chilean
Khmer
Thai
Canadian
Ancestries nominated by 10,000 to 19,999 Australians included:
Latvian
Iranian
Assyrian/Chaldean
Malay
Finnish
Bosnian
Mauritian
Norwegian
Czech
Fijian
Romanian
Tongan
Armenian
Slovene
Pakistani
Afghan
Anglo-Indian
Lithuanian
Iraqi
Burmese
Albanian
Syrian
Lao
Ancestries nominated by 5,000 to 9,999 Australians included:
Torres Strait Islander
Bengali
Papua New Guinean
Cook Islander
Tamil
Estonian
Slovak
Palestinian
Salvadoran
Argentinian
Timorese
Uruguayan
Somali
Ancestries nominated by 2,500 to 4,999 Australians included:
Peruvian
Kurdish
Taiwanese
Bulgarian
Sudanese
Brazilian
Colombian
Australian South Sea Islander
Coptic
Ethiopian
Nepalese
Zimbabwean
Jordanian
Hispanic
There were seventy other ancestries that comprised of upto 2,500 respondants. The Australian Bureau of Statistics has not declared if they included Jedis caused by the the campaign to have Jedi registered as a religion through the national census.