[thechat] toronto phoons

Paul Cowan paul at wishlist.com.au
Tue Apr 23 19:16:01 CDT 2002


Madhu wrote:
> Maybe I'm mistaken, but I remember reading somewhere that about 25% of the
> population were from other countries.

That sounds right.

In the 1996 census, 13,227,776 out of 17,892,423 (73.9%) were born in
Australia, so that's pretty close. 6% from the UK, 1.6% from New Zealand,
etc.

I suspect it would be even higher in the 2001 census, but the ABS
(www.abs.gov.au) does not see fit to actually provide us with such data,
instead trying to sell it. Feh.

> New Delhi, the capital of India, has a population equal to half of the
> Australian population.

Bloody hell. 10 million+ in one city... that's... well... daunting!

Intriguing stats:
India: 3 million sq km, 1 billion+ people
Australia: 7 million sq km, 20 million+ people.

I wonder what the area of the Greater Delhi city area is. I remember hearing
(no idea if it's true) that Melbourne (my home town) is one of the largest
cities in the world, area-wise - but certainly not population-wise. It's
very hard to find stats on that though.

For comparison, Melbourne is about 3.5 million people, in about 1700 sq km
of suburban area. It's easy to forget when you're here, but Melbourne is
*very* low density. The "great Australian dream" of having a house on a
1/4-acre block isn't a myth at all...

<trivia>
Melbourne apparently has the second-largest Greek-born population in the
world. It basically goes: 1) Athens, 2) Melbourne, 3) a whole heap of other
places, some of them even in Greece! :)
</trivia>

Paul



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