Chinatowns in Asia

Chinatowns in Asia are widespread with a large concentration of overseas Chinese in East Asia and Southeast Asia and ethnic Chinese whose ancestors came from southern China—particularly the provinces of Guangdong, Fujian, and Hainan—and settled in countries such as Brunei, Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, India, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam, Japan and Korea centuries ago—starting as early as the Tang dynasty, but mostly notably in the 17th through the 19th centuries (during the reign of the Qing dynasty), and well into the 20th century. Today the Chinese diaspora in Asia is primarily concentrated in Southeast Asia; however, the legacy of the once widespread overseas Chinese communities in Asia is evident in the many Chinatowns found across East, South and Southeast Asia.

These ethnic Chinese arrived from southern mainland China. They were mainly Chinese people of Cantonese (Vietnam, Cambodia, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia), Hakka (India, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Myanmar, Brunei), Hokkien (Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Cambodia, Myanmar), and Teochew/Chaozhou (Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia) stock and pockets of Hainanese, Hokchew and Henghwa in some countries.

Binondo, located in Manila, Philippines, is considered by many to be the oldest existing Chinatown in the world, having been officially established in 1594 by the Spanish colonial government in the Philippines that set off the area as a permanent settlement for Chinese who had converted to Christianity. (A separate area, called the Parian, was allotted for unconverted Chinese.)

The ethnic Chinese represent a large minority population in most of these countries—with Singapore being the exception, where Chinese-origin Singaporeans form the majority of the population. Chinese Indonesians and Chinese Filipinos have adopted to Indonesian and Filipino ways, respectively. The Thai Chinese and Chinese Cambodian people have generally assimilated into the larger Thai and Cambodian population, respectively.