SBS launches Australian Census Explorer in eight different languages

SBS has launched a new interactive tool inviting Australians to explore the 2021 Census results in eight different languages, extending the reach of the national snapshot to multilingual communities across Australia.

Alongside English, the SBS Australian Census Explorer is available for the first time in Arabic, Greek, Italian, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Spanish, and Vietnamese.

Launched during NAIDOC Week, Census Explorer also provides insights into First Nations peoples and communities, enabling all Australians to gain a deeper understanding of the diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, languages, and cultures.

The SBS Australian Census Explorer is driven by the Australian Bureau of Statistics Census 2021 data, including data from 2016 and 2011 for comparison purposes.

Mandi Wicks, SBS director of news and current affairs said, “the SBS Australian Census Explorer is unique and invites Australians to be curious about their neighbourhood, town or city, to see for themselves how our population is changing and how our diversity is increasing; all brought alive by the Explorer’s interactive platform.

“The accessibility of the SBS Australian Census Explorer, released for the first time in eight languages, speaks to our purpose – to encourage all Australians to explore and appreciate Australia’s diversity and in doing so increase our understanding of each other”.

David Hua, SBS director of audio and language content said “For new migrants, the SBS Australian Census Explorer offers an opportunity to unearth new information about their own communities as well as learning more about the diverse cultures and backgrounds of their neighbours. It’s a unique tool that supports social cohesion, especially as it provides a means for new Australians to gain deeper understanding of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages and cultures.”

The SBS Australian Census Explorer drills down into the detail of the Census’ key findings, illustrating a larger and increasingly diverse population with more than half of all Australians being first or second-generation migrants and with 5.5 million Australians speaking a language other than English at home.

Users can explore Census data collected from more than 250 ethnicities and 350 languages, which for the first time highlighted India as the third largest country of birth after Australia and England, and Punjabi as the fastest growing language.

The SBS Census Explorer also presents the 167 Indigenous languages spoken in Australia, with the Census counting 812,728 First Nations people  (3.2 per cent of the population).

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