Number of Australians born overseas hits century-long high

The amount of Australians being born overseas has hit a 120-year high, according to data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) on Thursday.

The latest set of figures show that around 6.6 million Australians, or 28 percent of the country's population, have been born overseas.

It is the most since the country's gold rush more than a century ago, with overseas migration labeled as the reason for such a large increase.

"Australia traditionally had a high proportion of migrants, but we've now hit a peak not seen since the gold rushes of the late 1800s," Denise Carlton, from the ABS, said in a statement on Thursday.

"Overseas migration has been a large contributor to the total Australian population growth for several years. It has consistently been the main driver since 2005-06, contributing more than 50 percent of population growth in Australia."

More than one million Australians, or 5.2 percent of the country's citizens, have been born in the United Kingdom, representing Australia's biggest overseas-born population.

New Zealand (2.6 percent) and China (1.9 percent) also make up a large portion of the country's overseas growth.

Carlton said it was a significant boom in births throughout Asia that was proving a significant factor in these statistics.

"While the largest migrant groups were people born in the United Kingdom and New Zealand, with a total of over 1.8 million Australian residents being born in those two countries, the next two most common birthplaces were from the Asian region," Carlton said.

"These were China and India, with around 450,000 and 400,000 people respectively."

"Of the top 10 countries of birth, the number of Australian residents who were born in India increased the most, almost tripling from just 132,800 people in 2004 to 397,200 people in 2014."

"The number of residents born in China also more than doubled, going from 205,200 to 447,400 over those 10 years." Endi