POPULATION
According to the Population and Housing Census 2011, the ethnic makeup of Zalău's population consists of the following self-reported groups:
| Ethnic group | Number of persons |
| stable population - total | 56.202 |
| romanians | 42.967 |
| hungarians | 8.662 |
| roma | 794 |
| ukrainians | 10 |
| germans | 27 |
| turks | * |
| russians, lipovans | 5 |
| tatars | * |
| slovaks | 23 |
| bulgarians | * |
| greeks | * |
| italians | 26 |
| jews | * |
| csango | 11 |
| others | 27 |
| unavailable information | 3642 |