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THE PEOPLE OF LONDON

London is a growing city with a population of more than eight million. It is also a multicultural city,

as it has been since Roman times. Now about a 40 percent of the capital’s inhabitants are members of ethnic minorities .

The Irish community People from Ireland first went to London in large numbers in 1845, when disease killed their potato crops, leading to famine. Many still emigrate there. The city’s Irish-born population is over 150,000, and there are also many people who were born in London but have Irish parents.

Indian communities Indians are London’s largest ethnic minority, with a population of about 575,000. Many came to the city after India became independent from Britain in 1947. Thousands more arrived from Uganda and Kenya in the 1960s, when these countries forced them to leave. Most settled in Outer London boroughs. Many Punjabi Sikhs, for example, live in Hounslow.

A street in Southall, in west London. Punjabi immigrants there have opened Indian food and clothes shops. Their London- born children often combine Indian and British lifestyles.

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Pakistanis and Bangladeshis More than 200,000 Pakistanis and Bangladeshis live in London, mostly in the east. The Inner London borough of Tower Hamlets is home to more than half the city’s Bangladeshis. The heart of the community is a street called Brick Lane, lined with inexpensive restaurants.

⌂ In and around Brick Lane, street signs are written in English and in Bengali, the language of Bangladesh.

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Major World Cities