About 3.8% of Australia’s population identifies as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander, based on recent Australian Bureau of Statistics data for 2021–2022.

Quick Scoop: What percentage of Australia is Aboriginal?

Short answer

  • Around 3.8% of the total Australian population is Indigenous (Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander).
  • The vast majority of this group—about 92%—identify as Aboriginal (with the rest Torres Strait Islander or both).

A bit of context

  • As of around June 2021, there were roughly 984,000 Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people in Australia, equating to 3.8% of the national population.
  • Human rights and government sources note that First Peoples are undercounted in census data, so the real proportion may be slightly higher than official figures.

Historical and regional notes

  • Before colonisation in 1788, estimates suggest there may have been up to 1.5 million Indigenous people across the continent.
  • Today the proportion of Indigenous residents is much higher in some regions; for example, in the Northern Territory, about 30–32% of the population is Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander.

Mini FAQ style highlights

  • What percentage of Australia is Aboriginal (today)?
    Around 3.8% of the population is Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander; about 92% of them identify as Aboriginal.
  • Is that number changing?
    Yes, official figures show the Indigenous population has been growing in absolute numbers and as a share of the total population over recent decades.
  • Why do different sources say 3.2%, 3.3% or 3.8%?
    They refer to different years or different ways of counting (e.g., earlier censuses vs updated projections and corrections), but the recent range clusters around 3–4%.

In plain terms: if you lined up 100 people in Australia today, about 4 of them would be Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander, though the true number may be a bit higher due to undercounting in official data.

TL;DR: What percentage of Australia is Aboriginal? Roughly 3.8% of the population is Indigenous (Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander), with most identifying as Aboriginal, and the share has been slowly rising over time.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.