OTTAWA, May 8 (Xinhua) -- Canada had the highest proportion of foreign-born residents among G8 countries in 2011, according to data released here Wednesday by Statistics Canada.

The first voluntary National Household Survey, which the federal agency designed to replace a historic and mandatory long- form census at the Canadian government's request, found that Canada was home to about 6.8 million people born outside the country, representing 20.6 percent of the national population.

By comparison, 12.9 percent of the population of the United States was foreign-born in 2010 when the U.S. conducted its last census.

Of Canada's foreign-born residents, 17.2 percent, or about 1.2 million people, arrived in the country between 2006 and 2011 and accounted for 3.5 percent of Canada's total population.

Among those recent immigrants, most or 56.9 percent (about 661, 600 people) originated in Asia, including the Middle East, said Statistics Canada. In contrast, immigrants born in this region accounted for 8.5 percent of Canada's foreign-born population prior to the 1970s.

Most of the new arrivals -- just over 6 in 10, or 62.5 percent - - settled in Canada's three largest metropolitan areas: Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. By comparison, just over one-third or 35.2 percent of Canada's total population lived in those areas.

Canada's visible minority, or non-white, population also increased from 16.2 percent of the national total in the 2006 census to 19.1 percent of the country's population in 2011, mainly due to the increasing number of immigrants from non-European countries, according to the household survey.

Visible minorities accounted for 78 percent of the immigrants who arrived between 2006 and 2011, while they only comprised 12.4 percent of immigrants who came to Canada before 1971.

South Asians, Chinese and blacks represented 61.3 percent of Canada's visible minority population in 2011. South Asians accounted for one-quarter (25 percent) with almost 1.6 million people, followed by Chinese at about 1.3 million people, representing 21.1 percent of the visible minority population.

Statistics Canada reported that three-quarters (74.5 percent) of Canada's foreign-born population could also conduct a conversation in more than one language in 2011, compared with 36.6 percent of the total population. Of the roughly 6.8 million immigrants, 54.6 percent could speak two languages, while 19.9 percent had knowledge of at least three languages.

And while Christianity remained the largest faith group for Canadians with just over 22.1 million followers, or two-thirds of Canada's population (67.3 percent), about 2.3 million people, or 7. 2 percent of the national population, identified themselves as Muslim, Hindu, Sikh or Buddhist.

Given the voluntary nature of the survey, Statistics Canada cautioned that "certain population groups may be overestimated or underestimated" in the results that are "subject to potentially higher non-response error" than those derived from the 2006 census.

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