The population of Northern Ireland has increased annually since 1978. The population in 2011 was 1.811 million, having grown 7.5% over the previous decade[93] from just under 1.7 million in the 2001 UK census. This constitutes just under 3% of the population of the United Kingdom (62 million) and just over 28% of the population of the island of Ireland (6.3 million).
In terms of ethnicity, the population of Northern Ireland is almost entirely white (98.2%).[93] 91% of people are Northern Ireland born, with 4.8% being born elsewhere in the UK and 2.3% being born in the Republic of Ireland. Irish Travellers accounted for 0.33% of the population. The largest non-white ethnic groups were Chinese (6,300) and Indian (6,200). Black people of various origins accounted for 0.2% of the 2011 population of Northern Ireland and people of mixed ethnicity accounted for 0.2%.[94]
In the 2011 census, 41.56% of the population identified as belonging to Protestant or other non-Roman Catholic Christian denominations. The largest of these denominations were the Presbyterian Church in Ireland and the Church of Ireland and the Methodist Church in Ireland being 19%, 14% and 3% of the total population respectively. The largest single denomination is the Roman Catholic Church, to which is the 41% of the population identified. 0.8% identified with non-Christian religions or Philosophies, while 17% identified with no religion or did not state one.[95] In terms of community background (i.e. one's own religion or the religion one was brought up in), 48% of the Northern Ireland's population came from a Protestant background, 45% came from a Catholic background, 0.9% from non-Christian backgrounds and 5.6% non-religious backgrounds in the same census.[95]
