New South Wales is the oldest and most populous of the Australian States, situated on the south-east coast of the continent (see map). Although its area is more than three times the size of the United Kingdom, New South Wales has a population of only about 6 million, just over one-third of the total population of Australia. Post-war immigration has substantially altered the ethnic mix of the State's population, which was predominantly Anglo-Celtic until recent decades. According to the 1991 Census, 23 per cent of the population in New South Wales were born in foreign countries. The majority of overseas-born came from Europe and the former USSR (53 per cent), the rest came from Asia (23 per cent), and other countries. Among the Australian-born NSW residents, almost one-quarter had at least one foreign-born parent. Close to one million people (aged five or over) in the State spoke a language other than English at home; this represents about 17 per cent of the State's population aged five or more (NSW Office on Social Policy 1994). Chinese (Cantonese or Mandarin) was the most common non-English language, spoken by about 2.3 per cent of the population aged five or over. Italian and Arabic were spoken by about the same proportion of the population. Other common languages include Greek, Spanish, Vietnamese, German and Filipino. Since the majority of immigrants settle in capital cities, in some areas of Sydney over half of the population speak a non-English language at home (Jupp 1995).