Total population | |
---|---|
1,213,903 by ancestry 509,555 born in Mainland China 86,886 born in Hong Kong 46,882 born in Taiwan 5.6% of the Australian population (by ancestry, 2016) |
|
Regions with significant populations | |
Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth | |
Languages | |
Australian English Mandarin, Cantonese various other Chinese dialects |
|
Religion | |
Buddhism, Taoism, Chinese Folk Religions, Christianity, Atheism, Confucianism | |
Related ethnic groups | |
Chinese New Zealanders Hong Kong Australians, Taiwanese Australians Chinese Indonesians Malaysian Australians, Singaporean Australians, Overseas Chinese |
Chinese Australians (traditional Chinese: 華裔澳洲人; simplified Chinese: 华裔澳洲人; pinyin: Huáyì àozhōu rén; Cantonese Yale: wàyeuih oujāu yàn) are Australian citizens of Chinese ancestry. Chinese Australians are one of the largest groups of Overseas Chinese people, forming the largest Overseas Chinese community in Oceania. Per capita, Australia has more people of Chinese ancestry than any country outside of Asia. Many Chinese Australians are immigrants from Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and other countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines, while many are descendants of such immigrants. Chinese Australians are also a subgroup of Asian Australians and East Asian Australians and represent the single largest minority ethnicity in the country. As a whole, Australian residents identifying themselves as having Chinese ancestry made up 5.6% of those nominating their ancestry at the 2016 census and numbered 1,213,903.
The early history of Chinese Australians had involved significant immigration from villages of the Pearl River Delta in Southern China. Less well known are the kind of society Chinese Australians came from, the families they left behind and what their intentions were in coming. Many Chinese were lured to Australia by the gold rush. (Since the mid-19th century, Australia was dubbed the New Gold Mountain after the Gold Mountain of California in North America.) They sent money to their families in the villages, and regularly visited their families and retired to the village after many years, working as a market gardener, shopkeeper or cabinet maker. As with many overseas Chinese groups the world over, early Chinese immigrants to Australia established Chinatowns in several major cities, such as Sydney (Chinatown, Sydney), Melbourne (Chinatown, Melbourne) and Brisbane (Chinatown, Brisbane) and as well as regional towns associated with the goldfields such as Cairns Chinatown.