 The town is overwhelmingly Black and Xhosa-speaking.According to the 2001 South African census, the "main place" of Butterworth had a population of 45,900.Of these, 45,142 (98.4%) were recorded as "Black", 345 (0.8%) as "Coloured", 213 (0.5%) as "Indian or Asian" and 200 (0.4%) as White.