Facts and Figures

Here are a few things that you may or may not have known about our South Asian Community in Hong Kong...

A look back into history, and we find that South Asian immigration into Hong Kong is dated as far back as 1841.

Up to this day, ethnic minorities make up about 5% of the Hong Kong population. Many of these minorities are of South Asian origins.

Among the South Asian community, the most significant ethnic minorities by numbers include the Indians and the Pakistanis.

According to the 2011 Census, there are 28, 616 Indians residing in Hong Kong...

1841

28,616

...and 18,042 residents from Pakistan.

18,042

These numbers have evidently increased over the past 10 years as shown in the table below based on the 2001, 2006 and 2011 Censuses.

India has launched the language policy called

“Three Language Formula”. Three languages, including the two national official languages – Hindi and English, and the official language of the state are taught in school since the primary level.

Not surprisingly, the South Asians of Hong Kong are usually multilingual, especially for the first and second generations. Many of them even manage to attain trilingual fluency or more. Most of them are fluent in both English and a mother tongue (such as Sindhi, Gujarati or Punjabi), and many are fluent in Hindi, and/or Urdu as well. Some may also study Sanskrit, Arabic or (for the Parsis) Avestan for religious reasons. However, the command of Cantonese is highly variable.