Chinatowns in Europe

Chinatown
London Chinatown
Chinese	唐人街
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Tángrénjiē
Alternative Chinese name
Traditional Chinese	華埠
Simplified Chinese	华埠
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Zhōngguóchéng
Second alternative Chinese name
Traditional Chinese	中國城
Simplified Chinese	中国城
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Huábù

Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu Pinyin	Tángrénjiē

Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu Pinyin	Zhōngguóchéng

Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu Pinyin	Huábù

Chinatowns in Europe include several urban Chinatowns that exist in major European capital cities. There is a Chinatown in London, England, as well as major Chinatowns in Manchester, Birmingham, Newcastle and Liverpool. In Paris there are two Chinatowns: one where many Vietnamese – specifically ethnic Chinese refugees from Vietnam – have settled in the Quartier chinois in the 13th arrondissement of Paris, and the other in Belleville in the northeast of Paris. Berlin, Germany has two Chinatowns, one in the East and one in the West. Antwerp, Belgium also has an upstart Chinese community.

Some European Chinatowns have long histories while others are still relatively new developments. Many early Chinese seamen settled in several European port cities and established several communities. The oldest Chinatown in Europe is in Liverpool, England. It was established in the early 19th century when Liverpool began importing cotton and silk from Shanghai. In the 1910s, Mainland Chinese labourers from the Zhejiang province who remained in France established the first Chinatown of Paris. There are other Chinese who "jumped ship" to Europe after working as hired hands on European ships or docks.

As a legacy of European colonialism in Asia, many Asian subjects of British and Continental European empires immigrated to the colonizing country. During the 1950s, immigrants from Hong Kong began migrating to the United Kingdom in large numbers, which resulted in the formation of London's second Chinatown in the Soho district. Some Chinese from the former Portuguese colony of Macau have resettled in Portugal.

In 1998, many more Chinese Indonesian immigrants arrived to escape the violent pogroms in Indonesia towards ethnic Chinese (mainly as a result of the Asian financial crisis of 1997).

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