In Bath and North East Somerset, the population size has increased by 9.9%, from around 176,000 in 2011 to 193,400 in 2021. This is higher than the overall increase for England (6.6%), where the population grew by nearly 3.5 million to 56,489,800.

But the population did not increase as much as in the city of Bristol whose population increased by 10.3%.

However up over in Mendip there was a smaller growth (6.2%).

As of 2021, Bath and North East Somerset is the 11th most densely populated of the South West's 30 local authority areas, with around four people living on each football pitch-sized area of land - which is the way the Office of National Statistics likes to compare population density.

There were more people than ever aged 65 years and over in England

Overall the headline news is that the population has continued to age. Across England, according to the latest Census, more than one in six people (18.4%) were aged 65 years and over on Census Day in 2021 - a higher percentage than ever before.

So that will have major implications for social issues such as paying pensions and allocating healthcare funding.

In the South West the largest single age group is now those aged 55 to 59 years.

Across Bath and North East Somerset as a whole there has been an increase of 17.5% in people aged 65 years and over, an increase of 8.2% in people aged 15 to 64 years, and an increase of 7.6% in children aged under 15 years.

The places that have seen the largest increases in the population aged under 15 years are Dartford in Kent, where the size of this age group increased by 31.8% between 2011 and 2021, and Peterborough in the East of England (23.8%).

National Results

Across the nation the population has increased by 3.5 million people since 2011 - a 6.3 per cent increase.

But that signals a slower rate of growth, with the last census showing a record 7.1 per cent increase from 2001.

ONS figures also show that 51.0 per cent of the population of England and Wales is female which is a slight rise from 50.8 in 2011.

A record 89 per cent of responses to the census were completed online - with 20 million households surveyed in total.

Added to census figures for Northern Ireland and a 2020 estimate of the Scottish population, there are now 66,966,400 people in the UK.