Croatian Australians
| Total population | |
|---|---|
|
126,264 (Croatian ancestry in 2011) 48,829 (Croatian-born in 2011) |
|
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney, Wollongong, Perth, Geelong | |
| Languages | |
| Australian English, Croatian | |
| Religion | |
| predominantly Roman Catholic |
Croatian Australians (Croatian: Australski Hrvati) are Australian citizens of Croatian descent. Croatia has been a source of migrants to Australia, particularly in the 1960s and 1970s. In 2011, 126,264 persons resident in Australia (0.6%) identified themselves as having Croatian ancestry.
Croats were first noticeable in Australia during the gold rushes of the 1850s in the province of Victoria. At this time, Croats were coded as "Austrians" because most of Croatia was a part of the Habsburg Empire. By Australian federation in 1901, there were many Croats—mainly from Dalmatia—in Australia, counted with Czechs, Hungarians, Serbs, Slovaks and others as "Austro-Hungarians". The establishment of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes from Austria-Hungary after the First World War—renamed to Yugoslavia shortly afterwards—continued to make it difficult to separate out Croats from other ethnicities in Australia. Croats were not recorded separately until the 1996 Census. The Australian Department of Immigration believes many Croats holding old (and now long out of date) Yugoslav passports still record themselves as Yugoslavs in Australian censuses, over a decade after the disintegration of Yugoslavia.
There is also a community of Croats who follow Islam, the descendants of those who converted after the 16th century, after the conquest of much of Croatia and Bosnia by the Ottomans. They established their Croatian Islamic Centre in 36 Studley St Maidstone, Victoria. with a masjid. Croatian Seventh-Day adventists meet in St. Albans.
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Wikipedia