The Multicultural Atlas of London

This atlas intends to celebrate the diversity of cultures represented in many of the neighbourhoods of contemporary London. It is based on an innovative technique to classify populations through the origin of their forenames and surnames as a proxy for their probable ethnicity. UCL has developed its own classification of names according to their cultural, ethnic and linguistic origin, termed Onomap. Read about it

Onomap classification is based on a new ontology of ethnicity that is multidimensional in nature, assimilating aspects of language, religion, geographical region and culture through the shared characteristics of names. Both forenames and surnames are currently classified into 185 independently assigned Onomap categories that can be then grouped in different ways.

What does the Multicultural Atlas show and how was it built?

The Multicultural Atlas of London shows the geographical distribution of 42 of the most symbolic cultural-ethnic-linguistic groups in London. The maps show the index values of the peoples’ names associated to the specified Onomap Group, to a fine geographical resolution at Output Area level. These index values indicate the proportion of people in each output area associated with the specified Onomap Group, divided by the overall proportion of the same Onomap Group for the whole of London, and multiplied by 100. As a result, in this index scale a value of 100 means that the Output Area has the same proportion of people from the specified Onomap group as the overall London average, while 200 means double the London average, and 50 half of the London average.

The source of peoples’ names used in this atlas is the UK Electoral Register, a public register which contains names and addresses of all adults that are entitled to vote. The version used here is a running cumulative register from 2001 to 2006. The reason to use a cumulative register is to compensate for undercount after 2001, when a change in legislation was introduced that allowed the option to opt out from the publicly available version of the register.

Where can I find out more?

Download the CASA working paper on CEL

Great Britain Surname Profiler

Global Surname Profiler

Pablo Mateos' publications on names and ethnicity

The CASA starting project: Surnames as a quantitative resource