Demographics
| Ethnic Origin | Population | Percent |
|---|---|---|
| Italian | 79,835 | 43.96% |
| Jewish | 33,705 | 16.90% |
| Canadian | 18,950 | 10.43% |
| English | 9,345 | 5.14% |
| Indian | 8,930 | 4.91% |
| Chinese | 7,435 | 4.09% |
| Russian | 6,490 | 3.36% |
| Polish | 5,855 | 3.22% |
| Irish | 5,635 | 3.10% |
| Black | 3,580 | 1.97% |
| Historical populations | ||
|---|---|---|
| Year | Pop. | ±% |
| 1971 | 15,873 | — |
| 1981 | 29,674 | +86.9% |
| 1991 | 111,359 | +275.3% |
| 1996 | 132,549 | +19.0% |
| 2001 | 182,022 | +37.3% |
| 2006 | 238,866 | +31.2% |
| 2011 | 288,301 | +20.7% |
Vaughan is one of southern Ontario's fastest growing cities. According to Statistics Canada, the population grew 37.3 percent in a mere four year period (more than 9.3% annually), and also has a younger age profile than the Canadian average as 22.3 percent is under the age of 14, while those over 65 constitute 8.15%, one of the lowest in Ontario resulting in an average age of 34.1.
Vaughan is reputably known as having some of the highest concentrations of southern Europeans (notably Italians), Eastern Europeans (chiefly Russians and Poles) and Jewish people in Ontario, while those who are of British and/or Irish origin form a smaller proportion than in many other southern Ontario cities.
Visible minorities make up 26.6% of the population. Vaughan has a small but growing Indian, Pakistani, Hispanic, Jamaican, Vietnamese and Chinese population.
Residents of Vaughan are fairly religious; the city has the lowest number of non-affiliates in Ontario. Some 67.42% of the population adheres to Christianity, mostly Catholicism (55.80%). Those who practice non-Christian religions adhere to, in order of size, Judaism (18.20%), Hinduism (2.47%), Islam (2.43%), and Buddhism (0.56%).
According to the 2011 Census, English is the mother tongue of 45.9% of the residents of Vaughan. Italian is the mother tongue for 14.1% of the population, followed by Russian (6.5%) and Spanish (2.6%). Each of Panjabi (Punjabi), Tagalog (Pilipino, Filipino), Hebrew, Persian (Farsi), Chinese, not othewise specified, Urdu, Cantonese, and Vietnamese has a percentage ranging from 1.7% down to 1.4%, signifying Vaughan's high linguistic diversity.
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