Pre-1901 (Victorian & Older)

A Chinese Australian is an Australian of Chinese heritage. They are part of the ethnic Chinese diaspora (or Overseas Chinese). Chinese Australians are the fifth largest ethnic group in Australia, numbering 557,021 in 2001. more...

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 those in North America), sent money to their families in the villages, regularly visited their families and retired to the village after years working as a Sydney market gardener, Cairns shopkeeper or Melbourne cabinet maker. As with many overseas Chinese groups the world over, early Chinese immigrants to Australia established Chinatowns in several major cities, such as in Sydney (Chinatown, Sydney), Brisbane and in Melbourne (Chinatown, Melbourne).

The White Australia Policy of the early 20th Century severely curtailed the development of the Chinese communities in Australia. However, since the advent of Multiculturalism as a government policy in the 1970s, many Chinese from Hong Kong, Mainland China, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia (Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia and the Philippines) have immigrated to Australia.

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