Vietnamese people in the United Kingdom
| Total population | |
|---|---|
|
Born in Vietnam 28,000 (2014 ONS estimate) |
|
| Regions with significant populations | |
| London, Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester | |
| Languages | |
| Vietnamese, British English | |
| Religion | |
| Primarily Mahayana Buddhism, Confucianism, with some Roman Catholicism | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Vietnamese people, Vietnamese people in France, Overseas Vietnamese, East Asians in the United Kingdom |
Vietnamese people in the United Kingdom include British citizens and non-citizen immigrants and expatriates of full or partial Vietnamese ancestry living in the United Kingdom. They form a part of the worldwide Vietnamese diaspora.
Vietnamese immigration to the United Kingdom started after the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, with the UK accepting refugees from Hong Kong, its colony at the time. Most early immigrants were refugee boat people fleeing persecution by the victorious communists; the rest were students, academics or business people. Vietnamese refugees initially found it fairly difficult to settle into a British lifestyle. Because the Vietnamese community in the United Kingdom was then small, the new wave of immigrants found it much harder to integrate into their host country compared to immigrants in Australia, France or the United States, where the Vietnamese communities were much larger. The early government policy of spreading newcomers thinly compounded matters by depriving them of vital mutual support. Many began gravitating towards larger cities such as London, with the majority settling in the Lewisham (Vietnamese is the second most common language in the borough), Southwark and Hackney areas. The existence of much larger and more established overseas Chinese communities in the UK has had a significant though perhaps understated effect in helping the new immigrants setting roots in their new country.
The 2001 UK Census recorded 23,347 people born in Vietnam with over 65% of these originated in Northern Vietnam. A study published in 2007 reported that community organisations estimated that there were at least 55,000 Vietnamese in England and Wales, and that 20,000 of these people were undocumented migrants and at least 5,000 were overseas students. The Office for National Statistics estimates that in 2014, 28,000 people born in Vietnam were resident in the UK.
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