Where the Turkish community lives in Melbourne

Dallas has the largest Turkish community: 22.3% of residents speak Turkish at home and 11.9% were born in Turkey. Meadow Heights and Coolaroo follow. These 15 suburbs came from a field of 117 eligible Melbourne suburbs. In Melbourne suburbs of 2,000+ residents, 0.8% of people speak Turkish at home (2021 Census).

Suburbs are ordered by the share of residents who speak Turkish at home. Turkish-at-home is measurably the stronger signal here: it covers 218 metro suburbs against birthplace's 119, and peaks at 22.3% of a suburb against 11.9%, because Turkish migration largely predates 1990 and the language carries into the Australian-born generations that birthplace misses. Only suburbs with at least 2,000 residents are included, and percentile ranks are computed within Melbourne's pool, so the list reflects concentration relative to other metro suburbs.

They are different census angles on the Turkish community: language at home counts the actively speaking core and country of birth counts only those who migrated. They rarely match, and seeing them together tells you whether a suburb's community is long-established, newly-arrived, or somewhere in between.

They measure different things and come from different census questions. Ancestry is a multiple-response question (a person can report up to two), so it isn't a clean share of population; birthplace counts only people born overseas; and language counts only those who still speak it at home. This is descriptive demographic data, not a recommendation to seek out or avoid anywhere.

The figures are from the 2021 Census, the most recent available until results from the August 2026 Census are released in 2027. The top 15 is recomputed whenever we refresh the census data.