Census data revealed: how diverse is Herefordshire?

The latest release of 2021 census data from the Office of National Statistics includes information about ethnic group, national identity, language and religion in England and Wales.

Just 1.2 per cent of people in Herefordshire identified as Asian, Asian British, or Asian Welsh, while even fewer identified as black, black British, black Welsh, Caribbean, or African, at 0.3 per cent, 1.1 per cent said they came from mixed or multiple ethnic groups., and 0.5 per cent said they identified with another ethnic group.

An overwhelming 96.9 per cent of the population said they were white.

Nationally some 81.7 per cent of people identified as white, a decrease from 86.0 per cent in 2011.

It was a fairly similar picture for language, with 94.8 per cent of the population saying they speak English as their main language, 1.5 per cent saying English is the main language for at least one but not all adults in their household, 0.8 per cent saying no adults in the household but at least one person aged three to 15 speaks English as a main language, and 2.9 per cent saying no members of their household have English as their main language.

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The most spoken main language for people who said they did not speak English as their main language was Polish, at 1.65 per cent of the county population.

Nationally, 91.1 per cent of usual residents aged three years and over had English as a main language.

The results may look more varied in Herefordshire when it came to religion, with 54.9 per cent of Herefordshire people identifying as Christian, but in fact 36.6 per cent said they had no religion and 6.9 per cent chose not to answer.

The national average saw 46.2 per cent of the population describing themselves as Christian, while 37.2 per cent said they had no religion.

Just 0.3 per cent of people identified as Buddhist, while 0.2 per cent said they were Hindu, 0.1 per cent Jewish, 0.4 per cent Muslim, and 0.1 per cent Sikh, while 0.5 per cent reported that they followed "any other religion".

Nationally, the number of people identifying as Muslim rose from 4.9 per cent to 6.5 per cent and as Hindu from 1.5 per cent to 1.7 per cent.

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