Chinatowns in Oceania

This article discusses Chinatowns in Oceania.



Given its proximity to the Asian continent, Australia has had, and continues to witness, a massive immigration of Chinese and other Asian. As with Canada, the majority of ethnic Chinese immigrants to Australia are from Hong Kong. Chinese from various places of mainland China, Macau, Taiwan, Korea, Southeast Asia—especially Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Philippines, and Indonesia—and Latin America also settled Australia.

Many early Chinese from the Guangdong and Fujian provinces of China immigrated to Australia during the gold rush era. They were mainly Chinese of Taishan, Cantonese, Zhongshan, Hokkien, and Hakka origin. As in North America, the Chinese faced massive institutionalized discrimination, and Asian immigration was restricted by the White Australia Policy in the late 1880s. It was repealed by the 1970s under multiculturalist policies, which in turn ushered in a new wave of Asian immigration, particularly from Hong Kong and the People's Republic of China, and giving rise to several Australian Chinatown communities.

Australia has numerous contemporary city and historic frontier and rural Chinatowns.

French Polynesia

The Chinatown, called Quartier Chinois, in French Polynesia is located in Papeete on Tahiti island. Its overseas Chinese also migrated to France. Starting in 1865, early Chinese migrants of the Hakka variety arrived in French Polynesia to work on the island cotton plantations. Many of these...
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