White people in the United Kingdom

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White people in the United Kingdom

Geographic distribution of White people in the United Kingdom (2011)
Total population
United Kingdom: 55,592,837 – 83.0% (2021/22 Census)  England: 45,783,401 – 81.0% (2021)[1]  Scotland: 5,051,875 – 92.9% (2022)[2]  Wales: 2,915,848 – 94.2% (2021)[1] Northern Ireland: 1,841,713 – 96.8% (2021)[3]
Languages
British English · Hiberno-English · Polish · Romanian · Welsh Angloromani · Beurla Reagaird · Cornish · French · German · Irish · Italian · Scottish Gaelic · Shelta
Religion
Predominantly Christianity (51.3%); minority follows other faiths (1.6%)[a] or are irreligious (41.3%) 2021 census, NI, England and Wales only[4][5]
Related ethnic groups
White Americans · White South Africans · White Australians · White New Zealanders · Irish People · White Canadians

White people in the United Kingdom are the native, multi-ethnic group of UK residents who identify as and are perceived to be 'white people'. White people constitute the historical and current majority of the people living in the United Kingdom, with 83.0% of the population identifying as white in the 2021 United Kingdom census.

The Office for National Statistics designates white people into several subgroups, with small terminology variations between the administrative jurisdictions of England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. These are local: White British, White Irish, White Gypsy or Irish Traveller, and immigrant descended Other White, and in Scotland; White Polish. In Northern Ireland ethnic group data is collected differently, where only the term 'White' is used, and with National Identity ('British', 'Irish', 'Northern Irish', or combinations) collected separately.

British nationality law governs modern British citizenship and nationality, and can influence who may be defined, whether informally, in media and academia, or UK Government statistics, as white Britons or white British people. Millions of white people in the United Kingdom, who hold British citizenship, do not identify with the White British ethnicity classification (or its subgroups, such as 'White English', 'White Welsh' or 'White Scottish') at censuses.^{[citation needed]}

Outside of the census, white people in Great Britain have been the subject of academic research, and have featured in public discourse in international and British media, in which they often are identified as a broad racial or social class within the country.^{[citation needed]}

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