What is being counted?
The numerator is the published White British ethnic-group count. In 2021 the category is named “White: English, Welsh, Scottish, Northern Irish or British”. The denominator is all usual residents in the same area and census. This is a self-reported ethnic group, not a measure of citizenship, birthplace or immigration status.
White British is a short label. The 2001 category was White: British. In 2011 and 2021 the label explicitly includes English, Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish. Questionnaire wording and available response categories changed between censuses.
How are the years compared?
Only published census years are shown. The slider does not estimate the years between them. A share is the group count divided by all residents, multiplied by 100. A change in share is shown in percentage points; the separately labelled relative change divides that difference by the earlier share. These are different calculations.
The map uses December 2021 local authority boundaries. 2021 counts use the 331 England and Wales districts in Nomis geography type 154. The 2001 and 2011 extracts use the 348 districts in Nomis type 464, with 25 predecessor districts combined into eight later councils. Published census-area estimates are used; this is not a microdata re-estimate on perfectly constant boundaries, and minor boundary changes may affect local comparisons.
Why are some parts of the UK grey?
The census questions and categories differ across the UK. Scotland’s White Scottish and Other White British categories, and Northern Ireland’s White category, are not substituted for the England and Wales category here. Grey does not mean no White British residents. This release makes no UK-wide total.
Read a change carefully
These are population snapshots, not a record of the same individuals. Births, deaths, movements into and out of an area and changes in how people describe themselves can all affect the figures. This dataset alone cannot identify the causes of a local change.
Census disclosure controls adjust some counts. Local authority figures may therefore differ slightly from separately published national totals. The England and Wales summary uses the published national counts, not a sum of the local rows. These are historical census observations, not current population estimates.
Original sources and downloads
Complete extract and source notes (JSON) ↓ · Accessible CSV ↓
Extract checked 2026-09-19. Census statistics: Office for National Statistics. Boundaries: ONS Open Geography Portal. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: Office for National Statistics licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right. Ultra-generalised boundaries for visualisation only.