Demography, ethnicity and identity summary - easy read version
Population - citywide
514,512 people live in Edinburgh
- 48.4% are male and 51.6% female
- 14.6% are aged 0-15, 69.5% aged 16-64 and 15.9% aged 65 or over
- the overall population is 7.9% higher than the last census in 2011
- the 65 and over population is 19.6% higher than the last census in 2022.
Population – ward highlights
- Liberton/Gilmerton is the ward with the largest population with 37,412 people
- Corstorphine/Murrayfield is the ward with the smallest population with 21,998
- Portobello/Craigmillar is the ward with the largest population increase since 2011, up 24.3% from 27,000 to 34,000.
Population – marital status
- Of those aged 16 and over:
- 46.8% have never been married or in a civil partnership
- 38.1% are married or in a civil partnership
- 15.1% are divorced, widowed or separated.
- 99% of people aged under 24 have never been married or in a civil partnership
- 53% of those aged 65 or over are married or in a civil partnership.
Households
- 336,000 people live in a one family household
- 93,000 people live in a one-person household
- 62,000 people live in another arrangement
- 38% of people live as part of a married couple household
- the number of people cohabiting as a couple has increased by 31% since 2011.
Ethnic group – white
84.9% of people are white
- 58.0% are white Scottish
- 13.6% are other British
- 8.1% are other white
- 3.2% are Polish
- 2.0% are Irish.
Ethnic group – non-white
- 8.6% are Asian
- 2.5% are mixed
- 1.9% are other
- 1.8% are African
- 0.3% are Caribbean or Black.
Country of birth
- 61.5% of Edinburgh’s population were born in Scotland
- 15% were born in other parts of the UK including 13.3% in England
- 2.7% were born in Poland
- 1.8% were born in India
- 1.6% were born in China
- 1.3% were born in the USA.
Identity
- 12,000 people are armed forces veterans
- 3,200 people consider themselves trans
- 32,000 are gay, lesbian, bisexual or of other not heterosexual orientation.
Religion
- 67% of young people aged 25-34 say they are not religious
- people of no religion have increased from 214,000 to 290,000 since 2011
- other Christian, Muslim and other religion have shown small increases whereas Church of Scotland and Roman Catholic have fallen since 2011.
Language
- English is the main language for 87.4% of people
- 12.4% of people speak another language as their main language, including: 0.16% Scots, 0.04% BSL and 0.02% Gaelic
- the proportion of people who can speak or understand Gaelic has increase by 64.8% since 2011.