what is the aboriginal population of australia

As of June 30, 2021, there were 983,700 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia, representing 3.8% of the total Australian population. This is an increase of 25.2% (163,557 people) from 2016. The Indigenous population prior to European settlement was small, with estimates ranging widely from 318,000 to 1,000,000 in total. The distribution of the Aboriginal population by state/territory is as follows: New South Wales, Queensland, and Western Australia combined account for three-quarters (74.5%) of the population, followed by Northern Territory (15.9%), Victoria (4.8%), South Australia (4.8%), and Tasmania (1.4%) .