page_title: Demographics of Melbourne
section_title: Religion
hierarchical_section_title: Demographics of Melbourne / Religion
caption_attribution_description: St Patrick's Cathedral View from West Entrance, Melbourne
context_page_description: Melbourne is Australia's second largest city and has a diverse and multicultural population.
  Melbourne has dominated Australia's population growth for the 15th year in a row as of 2017, adding 125,424 people between 2016–2017. It boomed past 5 million people in 2019 and is expected to overtake Sydney's declined population growth in the late 2020s or early 2030s.
  Melbourne has the 10th largest immigrant population among world metropolitan areas. In Greater Melbourne at the 2016 census, 63.3% of residents were born in Australia. Melbourne is home to residents from 200 countries and territories, who speak over 233 languages and dialects and follow 116 religious faiths.
  The earliest known inhabitants of the broad area that later became known as Melbourne were Indigenous Australians – specifically, at the time of European settlement, the Bunurong, Wurundjeri and Wathaurong tribal groups. Melbourne is still a centre of Aboriginal life — consisting of local groups and indigenous groups from other parts of Australia, as most indigenous Victorians were displaced from their traditional lands during colonization – with the Aboriginal community in the city numbering over 20,000 persons.
context_section_description: The 2006 Census records show some 28.3% (1,018,113) of Melbourne residents list their religious affiliation as Catholic. The next highest responses were No Religion (20.0%, 717,717), Anglican (12.1%, 433,546), Eastern Orthodox (5.9%, 212,887) and the Uniting Church (4.0%, 143,552).Buddhists, Muslims, Jews and Hindus collectively account for 7.5% of the population.
caption: St Patrick's Cathedral, Melbourne (the foundation stone was laid in 1858)
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