number. The general increase of the Muslim population in this decade was from 147,487 or 0.88% of the Australian population in 1991, to 200,885 or 1.12% in 1996. In 2005 the overall Muslim population in Australia had grown from 281,600 or 1.50% of the general Australian population in 2001, to 340,400 or 1.71% in 2006. The growth of Muslim population at this time was recorded as 3.88% compared to 1.13% for the general Australian population.. From 2011-2016, Muslim population grew by 27% from 476,291 to 604,200 with majority residing in New South Wales. The following is a breakdown of the country of birth of Muslims in Australia from 2001: There were 281,578 Muslims recorded in this survey; in the 2006 census the population had grown to 340,392. 48% of Australian-born Muslims claimed Lebanese or Turkish ancestry. The distribution by state of the nation's Islamic followers has New South Wales with 50% of the total number of Muslims, followed by Victoria (33%), Western Australia (7%), Queensland (5%), South Australia (3%), ACT (1%) and both Northern Territory and Tasmania sharing 0.3%. The majority of people who reported Islam as their religion in the 2006 Census were born overseas: 58% (198,400). Of all persons affiliating with Islam in 2006 almost 9% were born in Lebanon and 7% were born in Turkey. Areas According to the , the Muslim population numbered 604,235 individuals, of whom 42% live in Greater Sydney, 31% in Greater Melbourne, and 8% in Greater Perth. The states and territories with the highest proportion of Muslims are New South Wales (3.58%) and Victoria (3.32%), whereas those with the lowest are Queensland (0.95%) and Tasmania (0.49%). 4.2% of people in Greater Melbourne are Muslim. Many Muslims living there are Bosnian and Turkish. Melbourne's Australian Muslims live primarily in the northern suburbs surrounding Broadmeadows, (mostly Turkish), Coburg, Brunswick and Epping (mostly Lebanese). They also form communities in outer south-eastern suburbs such as Dandenong and Hallam (mostly Afghan and Pakistani). Very few Muslims live in rural areas with the exceptions of the sizeable Albanian and Turkish communities in Shepparton, which has Victoria's oldest mosque, and Malays in Katanning, Western Australia. A community of Iraqis have settled in Cobram on the Murray River in Victoria. An Albanian Muslim community resides in Mareeba who established Queensland's second oldest mosque. Perth also has a Muslim community focussed in and around the suburb of Thornlie, where there is