England is both the most populous and the most ethnically diverse nation in the United Kingdom with around 49 million inhabitants, of which roughly a tenth are from non-White ethnic groups. It is one of the most densely populated countries in Europe, second only to the Netherlands.

There is a debate over the extent to which the population of England (and indeed that of Britain as a whole) is composed of long-standing indigenous stock or descended from various groups of settlers and immigrants who have arrived over millennia. The traditional view that the population was largely descended from successive waves of incomers has been increasingly challenged, and DNA evidence of the contemporary connections of Cheddar Man has been cited as demonstrating that a substantial proportion of the present day population maybe descended from groups that populated the island in prehistory (The Times, 8 March 1997).

The principal waves of migration have been in c. 600 BCE (Celts, although these days there is a view that the ‘Celtic’ culture may have spread to Britain through acculturation rather than migration), the Roman period (garrison soldiers from throughout the Empire), 350-550 (Angles, Saxons, Jutes and other West Germanic groups), 800-900 (Vikings, Danes), 1066 (Normans), 1650-1750 (European refugees such as the Huguenots), 1840-1850 (Irish), 1880-1940 (Irish, Jews), 1950- (Irish, Caribbeans, Africans, South Asians), 1985- (citizens of European Community member states especially Ireland, East Europeans, Iranians, Kurds, refugees). In 2001 the largest foreign-born elements in the British population came from the Republic of Ireland (495,000), India (466,000), Pakistan (321,000), Germany (262,000), the Caribbean (255,000) and the United States (155,000).

The general prosperity of England as the largest partner of the UK, has also made it a destination for economic migrants from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. This segment of English homogeneous society continues to create a diverse and dynamic language that is widely used internationally. The other image of foreign ethnic components in England is still mostly seen as a legacy of the British Empire; especially the Commonwealth of Nations.