Important information:
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Main language (detailed)

Summary

This dataset provides 2021 Census estimates that classify all usual residents in England and Wales by main language (detailed). The estimates are as at census day, 21 March 2021.

Variable and dataset information

Area type

Census 2021 statistics are published for a number of different geographies. These can be large, for example the whole of England, or small, for example an output area (OA), the lowest level of geography for which statistics are produced.

For higher levels of geography, more detailed statistics can be produced. When a lower level of geography is used, such as output areas (which have a minimum of 100 persons), the statistics produced have less detail. This is to protect the confidentiality of people and ensure that individuals or their characteristics cannot be identified.

Electoral wards and divisions

Areas used to elect local authority councillors.

The data are for wards as at May 2022, apart from two instances.

We treat the City of London and the Isles of Scilly local authorities as single wards, not made up of multiple wards.

We have also split the data for Hunmanby and Sherburn ward into Hunmanby and Sherburn (part Ryedale) and Hunmanby and Sherburn (part Scarborough). This is to reflect that the ward is split between two local authorities, Ryedale and Scarborough.

Coverage

Census 2021 statistics are published for the whole of England and Wales. However, you can choose to filter areas by:

  • country - for example, Wales
  • region - for example, London
  • local authority - for example, Cornwall
  • health area – for example, Clinical Commissioning Group
  • statistical area - for example, MSOA or LSOA

Main language (detailed)

A person's first or preferred language.

This breaks down the responses given in the write-in option "Other, write in (including British Sign Language)".

Important information:
All 7,638 areas available

Variables

Population type
All usual residents
Area type
Electoral wards and divisions
Coverage
England and Wales
Main language (detailed)
26 Categories
  • English (English or Welsh if in Wales)
  • Any other UK languages
  • French
  • West or Central Asian languages
  • South Asian language: Panjabi
  • South Asian language: Urdu
  • Sign language: Any sign communication system
  • Any other languages
  • Does not apply
Show all 26 categories

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Protecting personal data

Sometimes we need to make changes to data if it is possible to identify individuals. This is known as statistical disclosure control.

In Census 2021, we:

  • swapped records (targeted record swapping), for example, if a household was likely to be identified in datasets because it has unusual characteristics, we swapped the record with a similar one from a nearby small area (very unusual households could be swapped with one in a nearby local authority)
  • added small changes to some counts (cell key perturbation), for example, we might change a count of four to a three or a five – this might make small differences between tables depending on how the data are broken down when we applied perturbation

Read more in Section 5 of our article Design for Census 2021.

Version history

Release date Reason for update
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