British society is very diverse ethnically especially
in the cities. In the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, many thousands
of people emigrated to the UK from the Caribbean, the South
Asian sub-continent, Uganda and South-East Asia. Ethnic minority
groups now represent about eight per cent of the British population,
including:
• over 1 million people of Caribbean or African descent
• over 1 million people of Indian descent
• over 1 million people of Pakistani and Bangladeshi descent.
In addition, there are significant numbers of people from China,
Italy, Cyprus, Poland, Australia, New Zealand, North Africa, the Middle East, the USA and Canada
living in the UK.
Languages
The most widely spoken Asian language in the UK is Punjabi,
followed by Urdu, Bengali and Gujerati. The main Chinese dialects
spoken in the UK are Cantonese and Mandarin.
• more than 500,000 people in Wales speak Welsh, and
some radio and television programmes are broadcast in Welsh
• Gaelic is spoken by about 70,000 people in Scotland,
mostly in the islands of the Hebrides off the west coast.
• in Northern Ireland, about 142,000 people speak Irish
Gaelic.
Religious diversity
The UK is nominally a Christian country with over 70 per cent
of the population identifying themselves as Christians. The
Anglican Church is legally recognised as the official church
of the State, and about half of the Christian population consider
themselves to be Anglicans. However, only about 1.5 million
participate in a church service on a typical Sunday, although
the numbers swell considerably at Christmas. The Roman Catholic
Church has an active membership of around 1.8 million. Other
denominations that can be found nationwide are the Methodists
and Baptists, both of whom are particularly strong in Wales.
Scotland has several unique denominations, including the Church
of Scotland, and various brands of Presbyterianism. Everyone
in the UK has the right to religious freedom, and, in addition
to the various forms of Christianity, many different religions
are practised. The largest religious communities include:
• the Muslim community, a population of about 1.6 million
• the Hindu community, about 560,000 people
• the Sikh community, about 350,000 people
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