This article is about the

demographics Demography () is the statistical study of populations, especially human beings. Demographic analysis examines and measures the dimensions and dynamics of populations; it can cover whole societies or groups defined by criteria such as ed ...

Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha is a British Overseas Territory located in the South Atlantic and consisting of the island of Saint Helena, Ascension Island and the archipelago of Tristan da Cunha including Gough Island. Its name wa ...

, a British overseas territory in the south Atlantic Ocean.

Nationality

The citizens of

hold

British Overseas Territories citizen A British Overseas Territories citizen (BOTC), formerly called British Dependent Territories citizen (BDTC), is a member of a class of British nationality granted to people connected with one or more of the British Overseas Territories (prev ...

ship. On 21 May 2002 they were granted access to full British citizenship by the

British Overseas Territories Act 2002 The British Overseas Territories Act 2002 (c.8) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which superseded parts of the British Nationality Act 1981. It makes legal provision for the renaming of the ''British Dependent Territories'' as ...

, and there is a special

Saint Helena passport Saint Helena passports are issued to ''St Helenians'', a unique status recognised by the Government of St Helena, and gained through birth, descent, or application. Those holding this status are British Overseas Territories Citizens connected t ...

issued to them.

Saint Helena

Saint Helena is the most populous part of

. The language spoken in Saint Helena is English. The island has a small population of a few thousand inhabitants, mainly descended from Africans,

Mixed race Mixed race people are people of more than one race or ethnicity. A variety of terms have been used both historically and presently for mixed race people in a variety of contexts, including ''multiethnic'', ''polyethnic'', occasionally ''bi-ethn ...

African and Europeans, British settlers,

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and South ...

employees and indentured labourers from the South Asian sub-Continent,

East Indies The East Indies (or simply the Indies), is a term used in historical narratives of the Age of Discovery. The Indies refers to various lands in the East or the Eastern hemisphere, particularly the islands and mainlands found in and around ...

Madagascar Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links=no, ; french: République de Madagascar), is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately off the coast of East Africa ...

and China. The people of Saint Helena are ''Saint Helenians'' (though locally they are known as "Saints"); the demonym being ''Saint Helenian''. A

census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses in ...

in February 2016 recorded a population of 4,534 on the island. This compares with a figure of 4,257 recorded in 2008 and a figure of 5,157 recorded in 1998. The fall between 1998 and 2008 can be explained mostly by emigration, especially since 2002 when the islanders were granted full British citizenship. The main diasporas are to the United Kingdom, South Africa and more recently to the

Falkland Islands The Falkland Islands (; es, Islas Malvinas, link=no ) is an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean on the Patagonian Shelf. The principal islands are about east of South America's southern Patagonian coast and about from Cape Dubouze ...

, as well as on Ascension Island. The population density, based on the 2016 figure, is 37.3 persons per km², or 95.3 per sq mile.

Districts of Saint Helena

The island of Saint Helena is administratively divided into eight districts, each with a community centre. The districts also serve as statistical subdivisions. The island is a single electoral area, sending twelve representatives to the Legislative Council. District map of Saint Helena

CIA World Factbook demographic statistics

The following demographic statistics are from the '' CIA World Factbook'', unless otherwise indicated.

Population

''NB: the following IAfigures represent the whole territory, including Ascension Island and Tristan da Cunha.'' By 2010 estimates, per one thousand population: the

birth rate The birth rate for a given period is the total number of live human births per 1,000 population divided by the length of the period in years. The number of live births is normally taken from a universal registration system for births; populati ...

is 10.95 births, and the

death rate Mortality rate, or death rate, is a measure of the number of deaths (in general, or due to a specific cause) in a particular population, scaled to the size of that population, per unit of time. Mortality rate is typically expressed in units of de ...

is 6.91 deaths. In the same year, it was estimated that the rate of population growth was 0.404%. The median age for 2010 is 38.2 years. The following tables describe age structure and

human sex ratio In anthropology and demography, the human sex ratio is the ratio of males to females in a population. Like most sexual species, the sex ratio in humans is close to 1:1. In humans, the natural ratio at birth between males and females is sligh ...

, as estimated for 2010. Births and deaths The

total fertility rate The total fertility rate (TFR) of a population is the average number of children that would be born to a woman over her lifetime if: # she were to experience the exact current age-specific fertility rates (ASFRs) through her lifetime # she were t ...

for 2010 is estimated at 1.56 children born per woman.

Ethnicity

According to the CIA World Factbook, 50% of the population of Saint Helena Island are African Saint Helenians, while Chinese Saint Helenians and White Saint Helenians make up 25% each. However, the possibility of clear-cut categorical divisions between ethnicities on present day St Helena, as reflected by these statistics, is disputed. Most Saint Helenians today are multiracial, similar to the

Cape Coloureds Cape Coloureds () are a South African ethnic group consisted primarily of persons of mixed race and Khoisan descent. Although Coloureds form a minority group within South Africa, they are the predominant population group in the Western Cape. ...

. Ascension has no civilian population, while Tristan da Cunha has a

white White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White o ...

population descended primarily from the British Isles or from the Falkland Islands.

Religion

The majority of St. Helenians are Anglican. Other religions in St. Helena include (''in alphabetic order''): the

Baháʼí Faith The Baháʼí Faith is a religion founded in the 19th century that teaches the essential worth of all religions and the unity of all people. Established by Baháʼu'lláh in the 19th century, it initially developed in Iran and parts of the ...

, the

Baptist Baptists form a major branch of Protestantism distinguished by baptizing professing Christian believers only ( believer's baptism), and doing so by complete immersion. Baptist churches also generally subscribe to the doctrines of soul compe ...

church,

Buddhism Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religions, Indian religion or Indian philosophy#Buddhist philosophy, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha. ...

, Roman Catholicism, and

Seventh-day Adventism The Seventh-day Adventist Church is an Adventist Protestant Christian denomination which is distinguished by its observance of Saturday, the seventh day of the week in the Christian (Gregorian) and the Hebrew calendar, as the Sabbath, and i ...

. According to the statistics in the 2014 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses, Saint Helena has the highest proportion of Jehovah's Witnesses of any country or territory in the world: one person in thirty-five, using an estimated population of 4,000 for St Helena and a count of 118 members. In Tristan da Cunha, Christianity is the main religion, with the largest denominations being Anglican and Roman Catholic.

Education

Where being

literate Literacy in its broadest sense describes "particular ways of thinking about and doing reading and writing" with the purpose of understanding or expressing thoughts or ideas in written form in some specific context of use. In other words, hum ...

is defined as being of age 20 or over and able to read and write, 97% percent of the total population is literate, according to estimates from 1987. 97% of males and 98% of females of St. Helena are literate under this definition by the same estimates.

Health

By 2010 estimates,

life expectancy Life expectancy is a statistical measure of the average time an organism is expected to live, based on the year of its birth, current age, and other demographic factors like sex. The most commonly used measure is life expectancy at birth ...

at birth for the total population is 78.6 years (for males it is 75.68; for females it is 81.67). The infant mortality rate is 16.98 deaths per 1,000 live births.

Ascension Island and Tristan da Cunha

Ascension Island has a population of around eight hundred inhabitants with the majority being Saint Helenians and located in Georgetown on the West Coast of the island with another small settlement, Two Boats located in Ascension’s interior.

Tristan da Cunha Tristan da Cunha (), colloquially Tristan, is a remote group of volcanic islands in the South Atlantic Ocean. It is the most remote inhabited archipelago in the world, lying approximately from Cape Town in South Africa, from Saint Helena a ...

has a population of about three hundred inhabitants, mainly located in the

Edinburgh of the Seven Seas Edinburgh of the Seven Seas is the main settlement of the island of Tristan da Cunha, in Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, an overseas territory of the United Kingdom, in the South Atlantic Ocean. Locally, it is referred to as The S ...

settlement on Tristan’s North Coast.

References

{{Navboxes , title = Articles Related to the Demographics of Saint Helena , list = {{British peoples , state=autocollapse {{Africa topic, Demographics of {{African diaspora {{English dialects by continent {{English official language clickable map Society of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha