Iraqi Australians
أستراليون عراقيون | |
|---|---|
| Total population | |
| 57,859 (by ancestry, 2021) (0.4% of the Australian population 92,922 (by birth, 2021) | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane, Adelaide | |
| Languages | |
| Mesopotamian Arabic and Australian English also Kurdish (Sorani, Feyli and Kurmanji dialects), Turkish (Iraqi Turkmen/Turkoman dialects), and Assyrian Neo-Aramaic, and Mandaic) | |
| Religion | |
| Catholicism (39.4%), Islam (25.4%), Others (10.8%) Assyrian Apostolic (8.7%), Other Christianity (5.7%) | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Iraqi Americans, Assyrian Australians, Syrian Australians, Iraqi diaspora |
Iraqi Australians (Arabic: أستراليون عراقيون) are Australian citizens who identify themselves to be Iraqi descent. Since the 1991 Gulf War, thousands of Iraqis have found refuge in Australia. The total of population is estimated to be as high as 95,000.
The first year in which the Australian Census of Population and Housing recorded the Iraq-born separately was 1976, when the population was 2,273. By 1986, the population had risen to 4,516. By the end of the Gulf War in 1991, it numbered 5,186, mainly in New South Wales and Victoria.
Many recent arrivals have entered Australia under the Humanitarian programme. The Gulf War and the quelling of uprisings of the Shi'a and the Kurds in Iraq resulted in a large increase in the number of Iraqis coming to Australia after 1991.