Britain has always had ethnic minorities. People with diverse histories, cultures, beliefs  and languages have settled here since the beginning of recorded time. Some, like the Huguenots (Protestant refugees who arrived in the seventeenth century), gradually became assimilated. Others, such as the Irish and Jews, who came at various periods, have to some extent retained their separate group identities. People from South Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean arrived in substantial numbers after the Second World War to help meet severe labour shortages. The most recent arrivals in Britain include refugees and asylum seekers from Vietnam, Somalia, Turkey, the Middle East and former Yugoslavia.

At the 1991 census, just over 3 million (5.5%) of the 55 million people in Britain did not classify themselves as white, half of them are South Asian (that is, of Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi descent), and 30% are black. Nearly four million people (7.3% of the total population) resident in Great Britain at the 1991 census had been born elsewhere in the  world (including Ireland, north and south). The majority of them (61%) were white.

Britain has a rich diversity of minority populations. However, the figures do not show the true size of the communities, as they exclude British-born members of these groups. For example, Indians born in India represent only 37% of the Indian group; 41% were born in the UK, 17% in the East African Commonwealth countries and 5% elsewhere.  Moreover the figures include people born overseas to white British parents. In 1991, nearly half of Britain's non-white  population had been born in the UK, and  about three-quarters of them were British citizens. The overwhelming majority of non-white children under 16 were born in the  UK.  

People of European origin account for the majority of the rest of those people born outside Britain. People from Ireland (north and  south) make up the largest group of these - 1.5% of the population or 4.5% if their children are included. People born in Germany  are the largest group from other countries in the European Community, while Poles, who settled in Britain after the war, make up the majority of people from eastern Europe. British Jews number about 285,000. There are around 63,000 Gypsies in England, 53,000 of whom are Romanies.