POPULATION
According to the Population and Housing Census 2021, the ethnic makeup of Zalău's population consists of the following self-reported groups:
| Ethnic group | Number of persons |
| stable population - total | 52.259 |
| romanians | 38.424 |
| hungarians | 6.108 |
| roma | 717 |
| ukrainians | 6 |
| germans | 17 |
| turks | 3 |
| russians, lipovans | * |
| tatars | * |
| slovaks | 11 |
| bulgarians | * |
| greeks | * |
| italians | 12 |
| jews | 23 |
| others | 31 |
| unavailable information | 7003 |