Westminster

See the Borough highlighted in red above

Points of note

There are points of note about Westminster in the following indicators:

Borough profile

The City of Westminister is a central London borough, bordering Camden to the north, the City to the east, "Lambeth"http://www.londonspovertyprofile.org.uk/indicators/boroughs/lambeth/ and Wandsworth to the south (separated by the River Thames), Kensington to the west and Brent to the north west.

It was formed in 1965 from the metropolitan boroughs of St Marylebone, Paddington and Westminster - inheriting its name and City status from the latter. The borough is home to many of London’s historic and prestigous landmarks, including Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament and Westminister Abbey, the royal parks of Green Park, Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens, Regent's Park and St James's Park, the famous shopping areas around Oxford Street, Regent Street and Bond Street and the night time entertainment district of Soho.

The last 150 years have seen drastic population change, from a high of 500,000 residents in 1880 to a low of 170,000 residents in 1980. Today, the borough’s population is currently estimated at 236,000 and, despite a number of open spaces, it is one of London’s most densely populated boroughs, at 109 persons per hectare. Westminister’s status as a tourist destination, as well as its large and thriving economy means that there are a significant number of short-term residents who are not counted in this statistic (including around 1 million visitors and commuters visiting the borough every day). Three-quarters of Westminster’s population are of working age, which is considerably higher then the London figure of 67% or England’s 62%.

Westminister also has a uniquely diverse population, with just under half of its residents from White British backgrounds, compared to 58% for the rest of London, and only 56% of residents born in the UK, compared to a London average of 73%. Westminster also differs in terms of which ethnic groups are represented: there are significantly lower proportions of Asian and Black ethnic groups but the highest percentage of residents who are Chinese, mixed White and Asian, and ‘other’ of any Local Authority in England. It also has the second highest percentage of ‘other mixed’ and ‘other white’ residents in England. Language data findings shed more light on the high proportion of residents recorded as “other”: they indicate that Arab groups – for which there was no distinct category in the 2001 census - are the second largest ethnic group in Westminster. In general, Westminster’s ethnicity data only partially shows its population's real diversity, which includes 182 different nationalities and a higher number of nationalities found within each ethnic group than anywhere else in the UK.

Westminster is an economic powerhouse, the third most prosperous borough in the UK in terms of average resident based income and some of the wealthiest people in Britain live there. Yet it has one of the highest proportions of adults who lack but want paid work in London.

This disparity is quite visible in the map of benefit recipiency by ward, where the wards with the highest rates are clustered in two places in the north and south of the borough.

Visit Westminster City Council website

Comparisons

Compare Westminster's overall performance against other boroughs

Indicators where Boroughs are compared:

Back to all topics

Site designed and built by Lift