Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1899 American Edition.djvu/659

 AREA AND POPULATION

311

13 ik l4 Vict. cap. 69 — into a separate colony, and called Victoria. The colony has an area of 87,884 square miles, or 56,245,760 acres, about -J^ part of the whole area of Australia. The colony is divided into 37 counties, varying in area from 920 to 5,933 square miles.

The growth of the population, as shown by the censuses of successive periods, is exhibited in the following table : —

Annual rate

Date of Enumeration

Males

Females

Total

of Increase per cent.

November 8, 1836.

186

38

224

—

March 2, 1846.

20,184

12,695

32,879

1457-81

March 29, 1857

264,334

146,432

410,766

104-50

April 7, 1861.

328,651

211,671

540,322

7-88

April 2, 1871.

401,050

330,478

731,528

3-54

April 3, 1881.

452,083

410,263

862,346

1-79

April 5, 1891.

598,414

541,991

1,140,405

3-22

The average density of the population is about 13 persons to the square mile, or one person to every 50 acres.

The following table gives a summary of the population of Victoria, according to the census taken on April 5, 1891 : —

—

Males

Females

Total

Population, exclusive of Chinese and aborigines .....

Chinese

Aborigines. ....

Total ....

589,317

8,772

325

541,146 605 240

1,130,463

9,377

565

598,414

541,991

1,140,405

The estimated population on June 30. 1898, was 1,169,434.

During the decade ended with 1891 there was a large decrease in the number ol the Chinese and aborigines.

At the date of the census of 1891, 97 per cent, of the population were British subjects by birth ; native Victorians numbered 713,585, or 63 percent, of the population ; natives of the other Australasian colonies, 79,719 ; of England and Wales, 162,907 ; of Ireland, 85,307 ; of Scotland, 50,667.

Of the total population (exclusive of Chinese and aborigines) in 1891, there were 493,977 bread-winners and 629,800 dependants, while 6,686 were not accounted for. Of the bread-winners there were — professional, 29,631 ; domestic, 56,980; commercial, 98,472; industrial, 167,127; primary pro- ducers, 123,996 (including agricultural, 82,482; pastoral, 15,296; mining, 22,464); indefinite, 17,771.

About live-ninths of the total population of Victoria live in towns. At the end of 1897 it was estimated that the town population numbered 655,780, out of a total population of 1,176,248,

Inclusive of the suburbs the estimated populations in 1897 of the principal towns were as follow : — Melbourne, 458,610, or nearly two-fifths of the popula-