The city has a higher number of Catholics than the state and national average, with 30.3 per cent of residents selecting the religion as their chosen faith.

It’s considerably higher than the state average of 23.2 per cent and the national average of 22.6 per cent.

However, the city is in line with the national average which shows most residents have no religious affiliation.

This was the case for 31.8 per cent of Warrnambool residents.

Our Lady Help of Christian’s parish priest Father Laurie O’Toole said he was pleased by the results, but not surprised.

“I think we’re blessed in the Western District,” he said.

However, he said while the number of Catholics was higher than average, there were some members of the faith who no longer attended mass every week due to a number of factors.

“We’ve still got big numbers, but these are secular times we are now in,” Father O’Toole said.

He said one reason for the high number of Catholics was due to the high number of Irish settlers.

In recent years, the parish has also welcomed a number of other migrants from other parts of the world. 

“We have a number of lovely migrants from Sri Lanka, India and South Sudan,” Father O’Toole said.

The census also revealed an alarming figure – with about one in four households across the south-west living on less than $650 a week.

This was in line with most of the state, but Casterton and Mortlake had a higher number of households receiving less than this amount, with 40.2 per cent and 36.3 per cent, respectively.

The census also revealed the median rent in Warrnambool rose from $220 in 2011 to $250 in 2016.

It also shows 34 per cent of Warrnambool residents own their home, 31.3 per cent are paying off a mortgage and 30.7 per cent indicated they rent a property.