The Northern parties have put their own interpretations on the census statistics. Unionists were anxious to insist that the headline figure did not mean an imminent united Ireland, whereas nationalists pointed to the closing of the gap between the two communities. Some called for an end to the "sectarian head-count" nature of the census.
The DUP's Mr Sammy Wilson said unionists could take heart. "Before every census over the last four decades, republicans and nationalists have anticipated a closing of the Protestant-Catholic gap and claimed demography would make a united Ireland inevitable," he said. "Each time they have been proven wrong."
The Sinn Féin chairman, Mr Mitchel McLaughlin, pointed to the narrowing of the gap and called on unionists to start managing political and demographic changes.
For the SDLP, Mr Alban Maginness said: "The nationalist vote has been increasing steadily over the past few decades."
But he cautioned: "It is by no means certain that this growth in the nationalist vote will lead to the united Ireland that the SDLP is committed to seeking."
An Ulster Unionist Assembly member, Mr Esmond Birnie, said the figures proved there would be no united Ireland in his lifetime.
"It is very likely that the Catholic share of the population will never reach 50 per cent and certainly not in the next 20-30 years. In short, speaking as someone in their late 30s, no united Ireland in my lifetime - if ever."
He called on nationalists and republicans to "stop dreaming that they can either breed or bomb Northern Ireland out of the UK and start to genuinely co-operate with unionists to make the institutions work so that Northern Ireland can be stable and prosperous for all its 1.7 million residents."
Mr Dermot Nesbitt, a former Ulster Unionist minister in the Executive, called for an end to what he called "this type of sectarian head-count".
Accusing nationalists and republicans of using the figures for their own ends, he said: "This type of sectarian head-count must end. We need mature debate, not knee-jerk number-crunching with a sectarian calculator."
Mr Sam Foster, another former UUP minister, said: "When the spin and triumphalism are taken away from nationalist political comment, the bottom line is actually quite simple - this is another census which shows a pro-union majority".
Ms Monica McWilliams of the Women's Coalition agreed that the emphasis on the religious composition of the population was divisive. "Speculation about a sectarian number count and the outcome of a Border poll at some point in the future has been unhelpful in building relations between the communities. We need to concentrate on making the current arrangements under the agreement work."
She added: "It is important to remember that religion does not necessarily determine voting patterns and we want to move to a Northern Ireland in which people can vote for a party which best represents the interests of the whole community."
The Alliance leader, Mr David Ford, said that neither nationalists nor unionists could take anything for granted. He added that the fact that some 14 per cent of respondents said they had no religion or did not state one should lead to changes in the government's "two communities" style policy. "Government policy is based largely on how it caters for nationalists and unionists - not the community as a whole - and that needs to change. If those politicians who are so concerned with how much their tribe has grown or shrunk were as worried about bread and butter issues and building a united community here, then we might well have a more stable society based on respect for difference."