Vietnamese among the most spoken languages in Australia

Australia remains predominantly English speaking, despite having more than 300 languages used across the country.

However, more than a fifth of Australians speak a language other than English at home, according to data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Tuesday.

The most common one is Mandarin, followed by Arabic, Vietnamese, Cantonese and Italian.

Asian immigrants outnumber those born in Europe and New Zealand, data showed. They are the new driving force of the Australian population boom, with an average age of 35. The majority come from China and India, followed by the Philippines and Vietnam.

In 2016, there were 280,000 Vietnamese people living in Australia.

By share of population, Australia has the ninth largest group of migrants in the world.