SourceTargetCommunity Atlas
We are Fairfield

76 per cent.

Nearly 76 in every 100 Fairfield residents speak a language other than English at home. It is among the highest shares of any council in New South Wales.

Our population
206,560
Speak another language
157,774
Languages at home
15+
Growth since last census
+7.0%
Our neighbourhoods run in Vietnamese, Arabic and Assyrian Neo-Aramaic as readily as they do in English. 158k of us speak a language other than English at home, a higher share than almost anywhere else in the country.
locally
#1
for share of residents speaking a language other than English at home, a ranking Fairfield has held through successive censuses.
What makes our community ours
Vietnamese
43,953 speakers

Vietnamese is spoken by 43,953 of our residents at home, 21.3% of the council.

Arabic
19,415 speakers

Arabic is spoken by 19,415 of our residents at home, 9.4% of the council.

Assyrian Neo-Aramaic
16,278 speakers

Assyrian Neo-Aramaic is spoken by 16,278 of our residents at home, 7.9% of the council.

The languages of Fairfield

111 languages carry the conversation at home. Every one of them is spoken here.

Each block below is scaled to the number of people who speak that language at home, and tinted by how fast that community has grown since the last census.

Vietnamese
43,953 · +8.5%
Arabic
19,415 · +24.4%
Assyrian Neo-Aramaic
16,278 · +21.5%
Chaldean Neo-Aramaic
8,447 · +29.0%
Cantonese
7.7k
Khmer
6,961 · -2.2%
Spanish
4,812 · -21.9%
Mandarin
4,753 · -7.2%
Italian
3,885 · -23.3%
Serbian
3,320 · -8.7%
Min Nan
Croatian
Lao
Samoan
Tagalog
GROWTH ≥ 50%
≥ 20%
≥ 5%
≥ 0%
≥ -10%
DECLINING
  1. 01
    Vietnamese43,953 · 21.3%
    8.5%
  2. 02
    Arabic19,415 · 9.4%
    24.4%
  3. 03
    Assyrian Neo-Aramaic16,278 · 7.9%
    21.5%
  4. 04
    Chaldean Neo-Aramaic8,447 · 4.1%
    29.0%
  5. 05
    Cantonese7,684 · 3.7%
    10.2%
  6. 06
    Khmer6,961 · 3.4%
    2.2%
  7. 07
    Spanish4,812 · 2.3%
    21.9%
  8. 08
    Mandarin4,753 · 2.3%
    7.2%
  9. 09
    Italian3,885 · 1.9%
    23.3%
  10. 10
    Serbian3,320 · 1.6%
    8.7%
  11. 11
    Min Nan2,399 · 1.2%
    2.0%
  12. 12
    Croatian2,325 · 1.1%
    10.9%
Fastest-growing among us
Chaldean Neo-Aramaic
+29.0% since last census

We share this portrait because Fairfield is, genuinely, not like an "average" council. Services designed for the median New South Wales resident arrive here in the wrong language. This Atlas exists so nobody writing policy about us, federal, state, corporate or media, can claim they did not know.

Our suburbs
Where we are
In context
Fairfield
76.4%
New South Wales
31.4%
Australia
27.3%

76.4% of Fairfield residents speak a language other than English at home, against 31.4% for New South Wales and 27.3% nationally. Drawn from the 2021 census.