Language Diversity in Australia

These Australian language diversity maps show the centres of linguistic differences across each local government area (LGA) in the country, broken down by state. The ‘top language map’ shows the most common non-English language spoken at home in the LGA, while the ‘Diversity scale’ shows how diverse each LGA is, as calculated using a well regarded equation for measuring diversity referred to as the Shannon Index. In this context, any LGA rated over 1.8 is regarded as highly diverse, with a range of both languages spoken and amount of speakers of each language, with 0.9 to 1.7 being moderate and less than 0.8 as being relatively low diversity.

To use these maps, first select the state you are interested in, and then whether you want the ‘Top language’ or ‘Diversity scale’ map. In the ‘Top language’ map you can either select the LGA to see the most common language, or choose the language from the drop-down menu to see in which LGA it is the most highly spoken. Alternatively, you can hover the mouse over each LGA to bring up the LGA, the language, and percentage of speakers.

For the ‘Diversity scale’ map, each LGA is colour-coded to represent the strength of diversity within the area, and you can also select to view high, low, or moderately diverse LGAs.

While not included on these maps, here is an interesting tidbit of Australian linguistic information for you:

There is only one language other than English that is spoken in every LGA in the country…

German!