[1][2][3] In 2005, the BBC found that the majority of Arab residents in London hailed from Egypt, Morocco, Palestine, Yemen, Lebanon, the Gulf States, and Iraq.

[11] As a result, community members are believed to have been under-counted in previous population estimates according to the National Association of British Arabs (NABA).

[12] In the late 2000s, the British government announced that an "Arab" ethnicity category would be added to the 2011 UK Census for the first time.

[6] Yemenis began to migrate to Britain since the 1860s via Aden, the main refuelling stop in the area, and settled around the docks in the port cities of Cardiff, Liverpool, South Shields, Hull, and London.

At the end of the 19th century, Yemenis working as stokers on steamships began moving ashore and set up boarding schools in the dock area.

[2] The ten local authorities with the largest proportion of British Arabs were largely concentrated in Greater London: Westminster (7.56%), Brent (5.27%), Kensington and Chelsea (4.45%), Ealing (4.39%), Hammersmith and Fulham (3.02%), Manchester (2.72%), Harrow (2.39%), Kingston upon Thames (2.13%), Camden (2.10%) and Barnet (1.90%).

Miladi's 2006 survey of 146 community members during the summer of 2001 reported Al-Jazeera as being the respondents' preferred news outlet.

Reasons supplied for the selection included the quality of the station's programs and transmission, its discussion of current issues in the Arab world, and the possibility of giving voice to the community's concerns and positions on various matters.