Record numbers of migrants are moving to the ACT, with new arrivals topping 10,000 in each of the past two financial years.
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Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show 10,920 people came to Canberra from overseas in 2017-18.
This was more than double the 5410 who shifted to the capital from across the sea in 2004-05, which was the earliest year in the bureau's dataset.
Migrants make up some 28 per cent of the territory's population.
English people are the most common group of Canberrans born overseas, with about 13,000 of them calling the capital home. There are also about 11,900 Chinese people living here, and 10,900 from India.
Collectively, those three nationalities comprise more than 30 per cent of the foreigners living in Canberra.
Public servant Preeti Poonia moved to Australia in 2006 but is a relatively new arrival to the ACT, having moved to the capital four years ago.
Originally from the Indian capital of Delhi, she hailed the Girls on Bikes program, which began in 2017, for helping her settle into life in Canberra.
Ms Poonia signed up in 2018 as a participant in the program that teaches migrant and refugee women to ride bikes, and enjoyed herself so much she returned as a coach this year.
"It’s such a great platform to get to know other people," she said.
"It’s just a great place to make friendships, because everyone is busy with their lives and it can be hard to find time for yourself.
"Bike riding is one of the things that I noticed seemed to be really important in Canberra."
Ms Poonia said being able to ride with her two children, aged 8 and 9, had enhanced her family's enjoyment of life in the capital.
She also rode to work at least three times a week, with the half-hour trip each way boosting her fitness.
During the most recent Girls on Bikes program, Ms Poonia said she had coached a woman who was initially "really afraid", but who soon got the hang of riding her bike and opened up socially.
Girls on Bikes founder and director Sophie Fisher said bike riding represented different things to different people, and many of its benefits were evident in her program.
"It’s independence, it’s mobility, it’s fitness and strength, and really importantly it’s an opportunity to get out and spend some time with family and friends," Ms Fisher said.
"A really strong benefit of the program is that a lot of enduring friendships have been made through the last three years.
"A lot of the women start as participants but come back as coaches. We have Facebook groups to keep people in touch and now we see that a lot of the women are going riding together.
"We’ve also heard stories about women who realised they lived close together and were able to take turns looking after each others’ kids, which really took the strain off being newly settled in Canberra."
The ACT has the fourth-highest proportion of migrant residents in Australia, behind Western Australia, Victoria and NSW.
In each of the past two financial years, Canberra's migrant population has increased by more than 4000 people, with more than 10,000 arriving and more than 6000 departing, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
