Chinese Population in the UK

The Question 

When I first moved to the UK in 2025, I lived in a town where I rarely saw Chinese people. This made me curious.

• How many Chinese people live in the UK, and how many live in my town?

• What share of the population do they represent?

• How are Chinese people distributed across the UK?

• Which city has the largest Chinese population?

Key Takeaways

• As of 2021, the total population of England and Wales was 59,597,578.

• There were 445,646 Chinese people in the England and Wales, representing 0.75% of the total population.

• In my local area, Basingstoke and Deane, the total population was 185,154. Among them, 1,057 were Chinese, accounting for 0.57%.

• Outside Greater London, Manchester has the largest Chinese population, while Cambridge has the highest proportion of Chinese residents. The map below shows how Chinese populations are distributed across different areas of England and Wales.

The Data 

• Source: UK census data (Ethnicity Facts and Figures). 

• Coverage: It covers England and Wales, which together account for around 90% of the UK population and the majority of the UK’s Chinese population.

• Latest update: The latest available census data is from 2021.

How the Data Was Prepared

• Use geography codes as unique identifiers to match UK maps, as location names alone can lead to incorrect matches. 

• The boundary map is from the Office for National Statistics and is converted from GeoJSON  to TopoJSON using mapshaper.

• Administrative changes in Somerset and North Yorkshire took effect in April 2023.

Further questions

Is the Chinese population in the UK growing or shrinking, and why?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cn0g0xnr7klt 

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