Country of birth of person (BPLP)

This variable shows a person’s country of birth. 

All persons 

Country of birth of person is coded using the Standard Australian Classification of Countries (SACC), 2016. The categories are listed in groups below.  

Number of categories:  

• one-digit: 12 
• two-digit: 39 
• four-digit: 293 

See  Understanding supplementary codes  for more information.   

This variable is created from responses to the country of birth question. Respondents can indicate their country of birth by selecting a mark box or by writing the country name in the text field. 

Most responses are coded automatically from mark box fields. Manual coding processes are applied where auto-coding is not possible.  

All coding processes follow the rules below:  

• Former country names are coded to the current country name (for example, ‘Siam’ is coded to ‘Thailand’).  
• Where more than one response is provided (for example, the respondent selects ‘Australia’ and also writes ‘Thailand’), responses are accepted in the order they appear on the form and additional responses are rejected. In this example, the response would be coded as ‘Australia’. 
• BPLP is coded using the SACC. Where a response is not listed in the classification, it is coded as Inadequately described. 

In some cases where country of birth is not stated, the category ‘Born in Australia’ is derived. This occurs when the person’s parent or parents are counted in the same dwelling and have reported being born in Australia to the country of birth of parents' questions. Where insufficient information is available to derive a response, the value remains ‘Not stated’. 

This variable was first reported in the 1911 Census. Prior to 2006, it was referred to as birthplace rather than country of birth. 

For the 2026 Census, the following updates have been made to the SACC used to code responses to this variable: 

• All references to 'Occupied Palestinian Territories', 'Gaza Strip' and 'West Bank' have been updated to 'Palestine'. 
• All instances of the country formerly known as 'Turkey' have been updated to 'Türkiye'. 

As in previous Census cycles, the order of response categories has been revised to reflect the most common answers from the prior Census. The exception is 'China', which does not appear as a response category on the form to encourage respondents to provide a more specific response such as 'Hong Kong', 'Macau', or 'Taiwan'.