In 2021, over 11 million people in Australia affiliated with Christianity, making it the leading religious affiliation among the Australian population that year. In the younger age groups, the number of people who affiliated with secular beliefs, other spiritual beliefs, and no religious affiliation was greater than those who affiliated with Christianity.

According to the 2021 Australian census, 43.9 percent of Australians identified as Christian. By comparison, Islam and Buddhism both represented roughly five percent of the population respectively. Over a third of the population indicated that they had no religion, however this category also included secular and other spiritual beliefs.

Dataset provides the population of Local Government Area's based on their religious affiliation as recorded for the 2006, 2011, 2016 and 2021 Census years. Australian Bureau of Statistics extracts from ABS Tablebuilder are used for the construction of the dataset.

LGA based data for Religious Affiliation by Sex, in General Community Profile (GCP), 2016 Census. Count of persons. The data is by LGA 2016 boundaries. Periodicity: 5-Yearly. Note: There are small …Show full descriptionLGA based data for Religious Affiliation by Sex, in General Community Profile (GCP), 2016 Census. Count of persons. The data is by LGA 2016 boundaries. Periodicity: 5-Yearly. Note: There are small random adjustments made to all cell values to protect the confidentiality of data. These adjustments may cause the sum of rows or columns to differ by small amounts from table totals. For more information visit the data source: http://www.abs.gov.au/census. Copyright attribution: Government of the Commonwealth of Australia - Australian Bureau of Statistics, (2017): ; accessed from AURIN on 12/16/2021. Licence type: Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Australia (CC BY 2.5 AU)

This dataset presents a range of data items sourced from a wide variety of collections, both Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) and non-ABS. The data is derived from the November 2024 release of Data by region. Individual data items present the latest reference year data available on Data by region. This layer presents data by Statistical Areas Level 2 (SA2), 2021.

The Persons born overseas theme is based on groupings of data within Data by region. Concepts, sources and methods for each dataset can be found on the Data by region methodology page.

The Persons born overseas theme includes:

Population (Census) Age (Census) Year of arrival (Census) Citizenship status (Census) Religious affiliation (Census) English proficiency (Census) Occupation (Census) Highest educational attainment (Census) Labour force status (Census) Total personal income (Census)

When analysing these statistics:

Time periods, definitions, methodologies, scope, and coverage can differ across collections.
Some data values have been randomly adjusted or suppressed to avoid the release of confidential data, this means

    some small cells have been randomly set to zero
    care should be taken when interpreting cells with small numbers or zeros.

Data and geography references

Source data publication: Data by region Geographic boundary information: Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS) Edition 3 Further information: Data by region methodology, reference period 2011-24 Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS)

Made possible by the Digital Atlas of Australia

The Digital Atlas of Australia is a key Australian Government initiative being led by Geoscience Australia, highlighted in the Data and Digital Government Strategy. It brings together trusted datasets from across government in an interactive, secure, and easy-to-use geospatial platform. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) is working in partnership with Geoscience Australia to establish a set of web services to make ABS data available in the Digital Atlas of Australia.

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