The number of people claiming Latvian ancestry in Australia has increased over five years and now tops 20,000, with females outnumbering males by 1,000, according to new census results.

A total of 20,058 people claimed Latvian ancestry in the 2006 census, according to results reported by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Of those, 10,529 were female and 9,529 were male.

In 2001, a total of 18,938 persons claimed Latvian ancestry.

Broken down by states, census results show that New South Wales had the largest population with Latvian ancestry, a total of 5,879, followed by Victoria (5,771), South Australia (2,933), Queensland (2,610), Western Australia (1,792), the Australian Capital Territory (603), Tasmania (331) and the Northern Territory (145). Of the country’s major cities, Melbourne had the largest Latvian ancestral population with 4,609.

The number of people in Australia with Lithuanian ancestry stood at 13,276 and the number with Estonian ancestry was 8,232.

More than 250 different ancestries were reported in the census and many people claimed more than one, the statistics bureau said in a press release. Australian was the most popular ancestry, with 37 percent of census respondents claiming it. English, Irish and Scottish were the next most popular. Respondents were asked to report at least one ancestry, but no more than two ancestries.

The latest Australian census was held Aug. 8, 2006, and results began to be available in June of this year. Australia conducts a census every five years.

Latvia’s Jeļena Prokopčuka failed to make it three in a row in the 2007 ING New York City Marathon, coming in third in the Nov. 4 women’s race after winning the competition in 2005 and 2006.

The women’s race was won by Paula Radcliffe of Great Britain, who took the title in 2004. Radcliffe finished the course in a time of 2 hours, 23 minutes and 9 seconds. Second place went to Gete Wami of Ethiopia, who finished in 2:23:32, according to results posted on the marathon’s official Web site.

Prokopčuka finished third, covering the 26-mile course in a time of 2:26:13. Last year, she won the race with a time of 2:25:05.

If Prokopčuka had won, she would have been only the second woman in the marathon’s history to win the race three times in a row. Norway’s Grete Waitz was the first to do so in the 1980s.

However, Prokopčuka edged out fourth-place finisher Lidiya Grigoryeva of Russia, who earlier this year won the Boston Marathon. Prokopčuka came in second in the Boston race.

Other Latvian runners in the New York marathon, according to the official Web site, included Andrejs Visockis, Ģirts Filipovs, Ints Dalderis and Neville David, all of Rīga, and Malda Caune of Salaspils.

An estimated 8,000 demonstrators—about half the number organizers had expected—converged Nov. 3 on the Dome Square in Old Rīga to call for change in Latvia’s government.

The meeting, the second large-scale protest in two weeks, was in response to recent controversial actions by the government of Prime Minister Aigars Kalvītis and the parliament. A number of well-known politicians, journalists and cultural workers attended the protest, according the media reports.

President Valdis Zatlers, whom opponents of the government have asked to dissolve parliament, made an appearance at the meeting. He encouraged citizens to become politically active.

The demonstration was advertised with a motto of “Par tiesisku Latviju! Par godīgu politiku!” (For a lawful Latvia! For honorable politics!”).

The protest continued the theme of what some observers have called the “umbrella revolution.” Where the Oct. 18 demonstration outside the Saeima building was marked by people protecting themselves from a steady rain, the Nov. 3 protest was dampened by a wet snowfall—which may have kept the number of protestors to less than expected.