Languages Spoken in London Mapped

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More than 250 languages are spoken in London, making the capital of the United Kingdom the most linguistically diverse city globally. About 78% of residents of London have English as their first language. Nearly 1.7 million Londoners don’t have English as their first language. More than 300 thousand people living in London can’t speak English.

The most commonly spoken second language in each London borough

The map below displays the second most commonly spoken language in each London borough. The map, based on data from the 2011 Census, shows that Polish and Turkish are the second language of the highest number of London boroughs. Some less common languages, such as Lithuanian, French, and Nepalese, are commonly spoken in certain boroughs. For instance, French is the most common in wealthier areas; loads of rich French moved to London when Hollande was elected due to raising tax on the top income bracket.

The languages most often listed as the second most generally spoken in any given borough are:

• Polish (7 boroughs) – Barnet, Bromley, Ealing, Lewisham, Merton, Richmond, and Wandsworth
• Turkish (4 boroughs) – Enfield, Hackney, Haringey, and Islington
• Bengali (3 boroughs) – Camden, Newham, and Tower Hamlets
• French (3 boroughs) – City of London, Hammersmith & Fulham, and Kensington & Chelsea
• Punjabi (3 boroughs) – Bexley, Hillingdon, and Hounslow
• Tamil (3 boroughs) – Croydon, Kingston, and Sutton
• Gujarati (2 boroughs) – Brent and Harrow
• Lithuanian (2 boroughs) – Barking and Havering
• Urdu (2 boroughs) – Redbridge and Waltham Forest
• Arabic (1 borough) – Westminster
• Nepalese (1 borough) – Greenwich
• Portuguese (1 borough) – Lambeth
• Spanish (1 borough) – Southwark.

Bengali is officially the second language of London after English, with about 71,609 London citizens speaking it as their primary language.

Top 10 most spoken foreign languages in London

1. Bengali – 71,609 speakers
2. Polish – 48,585 speakers
3. Turkish – 45,117 speakers
4. Gujarati – 43,868 speakers
5. Panjabi – 22,108 speakers
6. Urdu – 18,127 speakers
7. French – 13,013 speakers
8. Arabic – 11,971 speakers
9. Tamil – 10,513 speakers
10. Portuguese – 9,897 speakers

The most common languages spoken at home

Michelle von Ahn, Ruth Lupton, Charley Greenwood, and Dick Wiggins surveyed 850,000 children in London schools. The main question of this survey was about the first language spoken at home was asked. Numbers in the table below have been rounded up or down to the closest 50.

Language	Approx total
English	608500
Bengali & Silheti	40400
Panjabi	29800
Gujerati	28600
Hindi/Urdu	26000
Turkish	15600
Arabic	11000
English-based Creoles	10700
Yorubu (Nigeria)	10400
Somali	8300
Cantonese	6900
Greek	6300
Akan (Ashanti)	6000
Portuguese	6000
French	5600
Spanish	5500
Tamil (Sri Lanka)	3700
Farsi (Persian)	3300
Italian	2500
Vietnamese	2400
Igbo (Nigeria)	1900
French-based Creoles	1800
Tagalog (Filipino	1600
Kurdish	1400
Polish	1500
Swahili	1000
Lingala (Congo)	1000
Albanian	900
Luganda (Uganda)	800
Ga (Ghana)	800
Tigrinya (Sudan)	800
German	800
Japanese	800
Serbian/Croatian	700
Russian	700
Hebrew	650
Korean	550
Pashto (Afghanistan)	450
Amharic (Ethiopia)	450
Sinhala (Sri Lanka)	450

The most common main language spoken at home in London, not including the English language

The map below created by Reddit user LucasCu90, using data London.gov.uk shows the most common primary language spoken at home in each London Borough, not including English and other European languages (percent of London Borough population). This map is based on census data published by the Office for National Statistics.

English is the most prominent language spoken at home in London – the average across all Boroughs is 78%. It compares to 92% across England and Wales as a whole. On average, other European languages count for around 9% of languages spoken in London households; Polish, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, and German make up a large contingent of this figure. Bulgarian, Lithuanian, Romanian, Albanian, and Greek also feature significantly.

The languages displayed on this map represent a small minority of a Borough’s total population, except Tower Hamlets and possibly 2-3 others. However, don’t be fooled – all non-European language speakers still count for over 1 million inhabitants (including languages not included in the chart).