Bristol Population 2023
The 2021 population of Bristol is 472,500 people. This makes Bristol one of the largest cities in the UK.
Bristol is not just the tenth largest city in the UK by population. It is also the eighth largest city in England, the largest in the South West of England and the second largest (after London) in the South of England.
How many people live in Bristol today?
After hundreds of years of continuous population growth, Bristol’s population began to decline in the 1970s. From its 1971 peak of 428,099, the population of Bristol fell by ten percent, to 380,615 in 2001.
In recent years, however, the city’s fortunes have revived, and its population rebounded to a new high of 465,900 in 2021.
The population in Bristol is slightly younger, on average, than the rest of the UK. The city has more children aged 16 or under than it has pensioners.
Bristol also has more young workers (age 20-34) than the rest of the country – a statistic which reflects Bristol’s status as an ambitious city of business.
Bristol population growth
Bristol’s population growth between 2001 and 2011 was ten percent.
Bristol City Council is confident that growth will continue and believes that, if current trends continue, the population of Bristol will have increased by 23.3% to hit a total of 545,600 in 2039. This will outstrip growth in the rest of England, which is expected to be 16.5% over the same period.
The local Council predicts that Bristol’s population will hit 500,000 by mid-2027.
Ethnicitiy in Bristol
Bristol is an ethnically diverse city. According to the city council, in 2016 more than one in five Bristolians (22%) were non-white. This is more than double the number of non-white Bristolians in 2001 (12%).
According to the 2011 census (bear in mind that the figures will be different to those in the paragraph above, which are from 2016 – five years later) other major ethnic groups in Bristol are: White (84.0%), Black (6.0%), Asian (5.5%) and Mixed Ethnic Groups (3.6%).
Bristol’s White population can be further broken down into: White British (77.9%), White Other (5.1%), White Irish (0.9%) and White Gypsy/Irish Traveller (0.1%).
Bristol’s Black population can be further broken down into: Black African (2.8%), Black Caribbean 1.6%) and Black Other (1.6%).
Bristol’s Asian population can be further broken down into Pakistani (1.6%), Indian (1.5%), Chinese (0.9%) and Bangladeshi (0.5%).
Bristol’s black and minority ethnic population is more likely to live in the centre and north east of the city.
Bristol languages
According to the 2011 census, at least 91 languages are spoken in Bristol. The city’s status as a student city accounts for at least some of this diversity.
English is by far the most commonly spoken language – 91% of Bristolians speak English as their main language. Of those whose main language is not English, only 1.5% cannot speak the language well or at all.
The most commonly spoken languages in Bristol other than English are Polish (1.5%) and Somali (1.2%).
Religion in Bristol
Bristol is less religious than the UK as a whole. The 2011 census reported that 45.5% of people living in Bristol were either not religious or did not state their religion. This compares to a UK-wide figure of 32.8%.
Christianity is the largest single religion in Bristol, with 47.8% of respondents reporting that they were Christian. Islam is the only other religion followed by more than 1% of the population of Bristol – 5.1% reported that they were Muslim.
Bristol population density
At the time of the 2011 census, the population density of Bristol was recorded at 4,022 people per square kilometre.
Bristol population by year
| Year | Population | Year | Population |
| 1801 | 68,944 | 1921 | 367,831 |
| 1811 | 83,922 | 1931 | 384,204 |
| 1821 | 99,151 | 1941 | 402,839 |
| 1831 | 120,789 | 1951 | 422,399 |
| 1841 | 144,803 | 1961 | 425,214 |
| 1851 | 159,945 | 1971 | 428,089 |
| 1861 | 194,229 | 1981 | 384,83 |
| 1871 | 228,513 | 1991 | 396,559 |
| 1881 | 262,797 | 2001 | 380,615 |
| 1891 | 297,525 | 2011 | 428,100 |
| 1901 | 323,698 | 2016 | 449,300 |
| 1911 | 352,178 |
About Bristol
As well as being a city, Bristol is also a county in its own right, and a unitary authority. The city is also one of the ten self-declared core cities in the UK.
Bristol is located on the Severn Estuary, with easy access to the Atlantic Ocean to the West and, across land, London to the West. It became one of England’s major trading and port cities and was a major starting point for the exploration and colonisation of North America. The city also has a less salubrious history and, in the 18th century, was a major hub for slave trading.
Today Bristol’s economy focuses on the finance, media and service industries. It also has a strong presence in the aerospace and defence industries in the UK.
Sources
Unless otherwise noted, data in this article is drawn from a Bristol City Council report, or the British Office of National Statistics.
