| Chinatown 唐人街 (Chinese) Sydney, New South Wales | |||||||||||||||
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 A Chinesepaifang at the intersection of Factory Street and Dixon Street | |||||||||||||||
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| Population | 22,218 (2018)[1] | ||||||||||||||
| • Density | 44,000/km2 (115,000/sq mi) | ||||||||||||||
| Postcode(s) | 2000 | ||||||||||||||
| Area | 0.5 km2 (0.2 sq mi) | ||||||||||||||
| LGA(s) | City of Sydney | ||||||||||||||
| State electorate(s) | Sydney | ||||||||||||||
| Federal division(s) | Sydney | ||||||||||||||
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| Sydney Chinatown | |||||||||||||
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| Chinese | 悉尼唐人街 | ||||||||||||
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| Alternative Chinese name | |||||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 雪梨華埠 | ||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 雪梨华埠 | ||||||||||||
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Chinatown (Chinese:悉尼唐人街;Cantonese Yale:Sīknèih Tòhngyàhn'gāai;pinyin:Xīní Tángrénjiē) is an urbanenclave situated in the southern part of theSydney central business district, inNew South Wales,Australia. It comprises the majority of theHaymarket suburb, betweenCentral station andDarling Harbour. It is part of thelocal government area of theCity of Sydney, and is Australia's largestChinatown.[2]
Sydney, and the colony of New South Wales, experienced Chinese migration as early as 1828. The first group of Chinese labourers fromAmoy (modern day Xiamen) embarked forNew South Wales in 1848. With thediscovery of gold in 1851 Chinese immigration increased, and by 1855 the number of Chinese immigrants reached around 17,000.[3] The Chinese population had traditionally been represented by those who came from Southern China (i.e. provinces such as Guangdong and Fujian), due to the majority of colonial ports being located in the southern coast of China.[4]
One of the many nationalities to arrive in Australia during the Gold Rush years of the 1850s were the Chinese, and large groups stayed on after the Gold Rush itself ended. They settled largely in their own communities, working in locations across Sydney, with many of these Chinese immigrants becoming market gardeners on the city's fringe.[5] By 1861 there were some 13,000 Chinese living in New South Wales, and during this time the Chinatown was inThe Rocks district, also known as the 'Chinese Quarter'.[6] Anti-immigration sentiment was rife during the 1880s, and aRoyal Commission into "Alleged Chinese Gambling and Immorality" began in 1892, due to the number ofopium dens andbrothels that were found in the area, similar toMelbourne's Chinatown. This attitude of negativity towards the Chinese had settled down by the time ofFederation in 1901. By the 1920s, Sydney's Chinatown migrated over to Campbell Street, in the vicinity of the popularCapitol Theatre.
Since 2019, Dixon Street and other intersecting streets are completely vehicle-free every Friday from 4pm, in order to host the Friday night markets. Different stalls selling Asian street food, desserts, and confectionery line the streets and alleyways, and the markets can become extremely busy.[7]
Officially, Chinatown does not have clearly defined borders, due to its continuous growth. The traditional core of the Haymarket Chinatown has been centred around Dixon Street, a pedestrian street mall with many Chinese restaurants, and with apaifang (a traditional Chinese gateway) at each end. At the eastern side, running parallel with Dixon Street, areSussex Street andGeorge Street, Sydney city's main thoroughfare. Otherstreets and lanes within Sydney's Chinatown include Factory Street,Goulburn Street, Little Hay Street, Kimber Lane and Thomas Street.
At the eastern end of Chinatown, at the corner of George Street andHay Street, there is a sculpture made from a dead tree trunk; created by artist Lin Li in 1999 and namedGolden Water Mouth.[8] Its designer believed that it wouldbring good fortune to the Chinese community.
The current location of modern day Chinatown is actually the third known area to have been considered a Chinatown.[where?] When Sydney's produce market moved from what became the site of theQueen Victoria Building to the Belmore Markets, the Haymarket andSurry Hills areas became the focus for Sydney's Chinese citizens. By the 1920s Chinatown began to consolidate at its current location.[5]
On Hay Street, the construction ofThe Peak Apartments, a residential skyscraper, in 1996 and the newly renovated Market City shopping complex built over the Paddy's Market further consolidated Chinatown. Market City contains food courts with chain restaurants (such asHaidilao), an 800+ seat Dim Sum Restaurant (The Eight Modern Chinese Restaurant), boutique shops, City Amusements (a large indoor entertainment complex), and the HaymarketPaddy's Markets, a Wednesday-to-Sunday produce andflea market.[9] Likewise, the completion of Darling Square in late 2017 adjacent to Market City added multiple new apartment complexes and a plethora of new facilities and restaurants that fully integrated Chinatown into the urban core of Sydney.[10]
Unlike the Chinatowns in some other countries, Sydney's Chinatown has been relatively free of crime and hygiene issues. However, since there are manyskyscrapers inSydney, there are some concerns within the Chinese community about the building height restrictions imposed by the image-conscious local government authorities.
There are also satellite Chinatowns that have emerged in the past two decades in several Sydney suburbs such asAshfield,Hurstville,Eastwood,Campsie,Parramatta,Chatswood,Burwood,Flemington andKingsford. Each of these suburbs are increasingly diverse in that people from specific regions in China settle together in one suburb, traditionally known as anethnic enclave. For example, Ashfield is known as 'little Shanghai'[11] whilst Hurstville has a high concentration of people from Hong Kong.[12] However, Sydney's Chinatown still remains both a social and cultural centre for theChinese Australian community in Sydney as it continues to expand.[13]
According to theAustralian Bureau of Statistics, in 2016 the Chinatown and Haymarket area included a significant population of Chinese (31.9%), Thai (18.3%), Indonesian (5.6%), English (5.1%) and Korean (4.8%) population. The most spoken languages at home apart from English were Thai (20.4%), Mandarin (20.3%), Indonesian (10.2%), Cantonese (5.1%), and Korean (4.8%).[14] Furthermore, there is a significant student population from Asia, due to the close proximity of educational institutions such as theUniversity of Technology Sydney,Technical and Further Education (TAFE NSW), and theUniversity of Sydney. As of 2016, 25.9% of the residents in Chinatown were studying at university orTAFE[15] and 33.4% of individuals in theHaymarket area had a attained abachelor's degree or above.
As a centrally located Chinatown (that is adjacent to, and being gradually absorbed by the growingcentral business district), there are manywhite collar workers. Out of the 65,950 workers in the surrounding area in 2017, 18% worked in finance & financial services, 17% in the government, and 13.6% in professional & business services.[16] The median weekly household income in 2016 was $1,696, slightly above the national average of $1,659 in 2019.[17]
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Sydney is thesister city ofGuangzhou inChina,[18] and as a gift to Sydney during theAustralian Bicentenary in 1988, theChinese Garden of Friendship (traditional Chinese:誼園;simplified Chinese:谊园;pinyin:yìyuán;Cantonese Yale:yihyùhn) was constructed west of Chinatown in theDarling Harbour precinct. The relationship betweenSydney andGuangzhou (previously romanized as Canton), the capital ofGuangdong province, is particularly strong because of trade and migration since the earliest days of colonisation. The agreement stipulatedGuangdong would provide the design of the garden and key building materials, furniture and artworks that are intrinsic to the classic garden typology, while New South Wales would manage and fund its construction through the Darling Harbour Authority.It is one of the few public traditional Chinese gardens outside of China and is a horticultural expression of a private garden and can also be classified as a scholar's or classical garden.[19] The gardens were added to theNew South Wales State Heritage Register on 5 October 2018.[20] The garden hosts activities such as lessons on its history and design philosophy, landscape tours, school visits, wedding functions, koi fish feeding, among others.[21]
There are many bilingual street signs across Chinatown, denoting the name of streets, lanes, and roads in both English and Chinese. Some of the names are based on their Cantonese pronunciation (e.g. Hay Street; 禧街 which is pronounced"Hēi Gāai" in Cantonese, but"Xǐ Jiē" in Mandarin") whilst others are based on their Mandarin pronunciation (e.g. Liverpool Street; 利物浦街 which is pronounced"Lìwùpǔ Jiē" in Mandarin, but "Léihmáhtpóu Gāai" in Cantonese).
Some of these signs are accompanied by their officialCity of Sydney street signs. On the bottom of each of these signs, it reads, "Welcome to Chinatown" and "歡迎光臨華埠".
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