Country of birth (extended) variable: Census 2021

Mnemonic: country_of_birth_extended
Applicability: Person
Type: Derived variable

Definition

The country in which a person was born.

For people not born in one of the four countries of the UK or the Republic of Ireland, there was an option to select "elsewhere".

People who selected "elsewhere" were asked to write in the current name for their country of birth.

This classification provides additional detail on write-in responses.

Classification

Total number of categories: 190

*Students and schoolchildren living away during term-time.

Background

Read about how we developed and tested the questions for Census 2021.

Comparability with the 2011 Census

Broadly comparable

We have changed some categories to make them more consistent with country classifications used in other national statistics.

What does broadly comparable mean?

A variable that is broadly comparable means that it can be generally compared with the same variable used in the 2011 Census. However, changes may have been made to the question or options that people could choose from or how write-in answers are classified.

England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland comparisons

Highly comparable

What does highly comparable mean?

A variable that is highly comparable means that it can be directly compared with the variable from Scotland and Northern Ireland. The questions and options that people could choose from may be slightly different, for example the order of the options may be swapped around, but the data collected is the same.

Find out more about variables produced for Census 2021 in Northern Ireland and Census 2022 in Scotland.

Census 2021 data that uses this variable

You can create a custom dataset.