Italian community of Melbourne
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| Total population | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| (Italian 68,823 (by birth, 2011) 279,112 (by ancestry, 2011)) |
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| Languages | |||||||||
| Religion | |||||||||
| Predominantly Roman Catholic | |||||||||
| Related ethnic groups | |||||||||
| Italian American, part of Italian Australian, Italian Canadian, Italian Scottish, Italian Welsh, Mediterraneans | |||||||||
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The Italian community of Melbourne is the second largest ethnic group in Greater Melbourne, Australia, second to the Anglo-Celtic Australians ethnic group. The 2011 Census counted that of the 185,402 residents that were born in Italy who live in Australia, 68,823 lived in Melbourne, which was the highest percentage of the country at 37.1%. The same could be said for the total Australian population of Italian ancestry, with 279,112 of the 916,121 (30.4%) listed as Melbournian residents, which is the highest Italian population in Australia and the Oceanic continent per city.
Inaugural records of the Italian community of Melbourne are debated as official records are obscured. It is known that the Victorian gold rush of the 1850s attracted thousands of Italians and Swiss Italians to Australia. The drain on the labour supply occasioned by the gold rush caused Australia to also seek workmen from Europe for land use and the development of cultivation. It is the approximate number of Italians who joined the Victorian gold mines is obscure, and until 1871 Italians did not receive a special place in any Australian census figures. By 1881, the first year of census figures on Italian migrants in all Australian states, not just in Victoria, there were 947 (0.10%) in Victoria, of whom one-third were in Melbourne.
Following Italy's involvement in world war I, many Italians particularly from the southern regions of Calabria and Sicily and descended into both, the south eastern and northern suburbs of Melbourne. Following World War II, Australia saw a huge influx of Italian migrants settling all throughout Melbourne. The northern inner-suburbs saw the highest population densities of Italian migration between the 1940s-60's. These suburbs consisted of Brunswick, Brunswick East, Brunswick West, Carlton, Carlton North, Fitzroy, Fitzroy North, Parkville and Princes Hill. Of all the listed suburbs, the highest concentration in Carlton, saw the eventual establishment of Melbourne's current Little Italy, on Lygon Street, between the intersections of Elgin & Queensberry streets.
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