Chinatown, Sydney

Chinese immigrants in Sydney at the Pageant of Nations, Sydney Town Hall, 1938.

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 in The Rocks district, also known as the 'Chinese Quarter'.[6] Anti-immigration sentiment was rife during the 1880s, and a Royal Commission into "Alleged Chinese Gambling and Immorality" began in 1892, due to the number of opium dens and brothels that were found in the area, similar to Melbourne's Chinatown. This attitude of negativity towards the Chinese had settled down by the time of Federation in 1901. By the 1920s, Sydney's Chinatown migrated over to Campbell Street, in the vicinity of the popular Capitol 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]

Chinese New Year parade

According to the Australian 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 the University of Technology Sydney, Technical and Further Education (TAFE NSW), and the University of Sydney. As of 2016, 25.9% of the residents in Chinatown were studying at university or TAFE[15] and 33.4% of individuals in the Haymarket area had a attained a bachelor's degree or above.

As a centrally located Chinatown (that is adjacent to, and being gradually absorbed by the growing central business district), there are many white 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]

Chinese Garden of Friendship

Sydney is the sister city of Guangzhou in China,[18] and as a gift to Sydney during the Australian Bicentenary in 1988, the Chinese Garden of Friendship (traditional Chinese: 誼園; simplified Chinese: 谊园; pinyin: yìyuán; Cantonese Yale: yihyùhn) was constructed west of Chinatown in the Darling Harbour precinct. The relationship between Sydney and Guangzhou (previously romanized as Canton), the capital of Guangdong province, is particularly strong because of trade and migration since the earliest days of colonisation. The agreement stipulated Guangdong 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 the New 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 official City of Sydney street signs. On the bottom of each of these signs, it reads, "Welcome to Chinatown" and "歡迎光臨華埠".

• 
  Dixon Street; 德信街 (Cantonese: Dakseun Gāai; Mandarin: Déxìn Jiē)
• 
  Factory Street; 發多利街 (Cantonese: Faatdōleih Gāai; Mandarin: Faduōlì Jiē)
• 
  Goulburn Street; 高賓街 (Cantonese: Gōubān Gāai; Mandarin: Gāobīn Jiē)
• 
  Hay Street; 禧街 (Cantonese: Hēi Gāai; Mandarin: Xǐ Jiē)
• 
  Kimber Lane; 金貝里 (Cantonese: Gāmbui Léih; Mandarin: Jīnbèi Lǐ)
• 
  Little Hay Street; 小禧街 (Cantonese: Síuhēi Gāai; Mandarin: Xiǎoxǐ Jiē)
• 
  Liverpool Street; 利物浦街 (Cantonese: Léihmáhtpóu Gāai; Mandarin: Lìwùpǔ Jiē)
• 
  Sussex Street; 莎瑟街 (Cantonese: Sāsāt Gāai; Mandarin: Shāsè Jiē)
• 
  Thomas Lane; 湯馬士里 (Cantonese: Tōngmáhsih Léih; Mandarin: Tāngmǎshì Lǐ)
• 
  Thomas Street; 湯馬士街 (Cantonese: Tōngmáhsih Gāai; Mandarin: Tāngmǎshì Jiē)
• 
  Ultimo Road; 歐廸模道 (Cantonese: Āudihkmòuh Douh; Mandarin: Ōudímó Dào)
• 
  Older sign for Ultimo Road; 歐田磨路 (Cantonese: Āutìhnmòh Louh; Mandarin: Ōutiánmó Lù)

• 
  Dixon House, 80 Dixon Street
• 
  Friday Night Markets in Chinatown
• 
  Entrance to Chinatown via Haymarket, at night
• 
  Darling Square has extended Chinatown towards Darling Harbour
• 
  Haymarket (2013)
• 
  The Sydney office of the Kuomintang
• 
  The Chinese Garden of Friendship
• 
  Corner store in Chinatown
• 
  Lunar New Year celebrations
• 
  Lunar New Year celebrations

• Sydney's Chinatown is the setting and film location of the music video for David Bowie's 1983 single China Girl.[22]
• Parts of Sydney Chinatown appear in the 1999 film Two Hands
• A scene for Dulcea's compound in 20th Century Fox's 1995 superhero film Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie[23]
• Appeared in The Wolverine in October 2012[24]

• Chinatowns in Australia
• Chinese Australians
• History of Chinese Australians
• Yiu Ming Temple, heritage-listed Chinese temple at 16-22 Retreat Street, Alexandria, City of Sydney
• Sze Yup Temple, heritage-listed Chinese temple at Victoria Road in the inner western Sydney suburb of Glebe, City of Sydney
• Australia-China relations
• Asian Australians
• Australians in China

• Shirley Fitzgerald (2008). "Chinatown". Dictionary of Sydney. Retrieved 26 September 2015. [CC-By-SA]
• SYDNEY.com - Chinatown and Haymarket

Wikivoyage has a travel guide for Sydney - City South.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Chinatown, Sydney.

• Anderson, Kay et al (2019) Chinatown Unbound, Rowman & Littlefeld, London.
• Fitzgerald, Shirley (1997). Red Tape, Gold Scissors (The story of Sydney's Chinese) (Paperback). State Library of New South Wales Press in association with The City of Sydney. pp. 206 pages. ISBN 0-7310-6607-3.
• Richards, D. Manning (2012) Destiny in Sydney: An epic novel of convicts, Aborigines, and Chinese embroiled in the birth of Sydney, Australia. First book in Sydney series. Washington DC: Aries Books. ISBN 978-0-9845410-0-3

33°52′43.61″S 151°12′14.69″E