Italian Australian - Historical Overview of Italians in Australia - Geographical Distribution of Italians in Australia

Geographical Distribution of Italians in Australia

Since the late 1960s the Italian migratory flow towards Australia ceased. At present, the Italian Australian community is numerically stable and well settled. The Australian Census of 1971 indicated over 289,000 people born in Italy, gradually decreasing to about 254,000 in the 1991 Census. Hence, the progressive aging process of its population is an indicator of the lack of turnover with new arrays of migrants from Italy.

Italians still represent almost 5% of the Australian population, more than 10% of the total intake of overseas-born residents, and some scholars count them as almost 1,000,000 including second and third generation Italians with at least one Italian parent or grandparent respectively. Notwithstanding, their percentage in the total Australian population is slowly decreasing due to higher Asian immigration today.

Italy-born migrants are mainly concentrated in urban areas, and within specific suburbs. In his study on ethnic diversity in Melbourne and Sydney, Hugo outlines patterns by referencing to previous work by Price: "The spatial distribution of ethnic groups in Sydney and Melbourne is of particular interest because, as Price demonstrates in his classic study of Southern Europeans in Australia, patterns of settlement are inextricably bound up with a whole range of social and economic elements that impinge upon the well-being of those groups".

Most of the Italian-born are now concentrated in Melbourne (73,799), Sydney (44,562), Adelaide (20,877) and Perth (18,815). Unlike other groups, the number of Italians residing in Brisbane is relatively few, with the exception of a notable distribution of Italians in Northern Queensland, as Hempel has described in her research on post-war settlement of Italian immigrants in this state. This circumstance is a consequence of the migration patterns followed by Italians in the earlier stage of their settlement in Queensland, during the 1910s, 1920s and 1930s, when the sugarcane industry and its related possibility of quick earnings attracted more 'temporary' migrants in the countryside.

Conversely, in Australian cities, the Italian village or the region of origin have been significant in the formation of separate settlements or neighbourhood groupings of Italians. The way in which a population 'subgroup' is distributed across an area is of importance because not only can it tell us a great deal about the pattern of life of that group, but it is also crucial in any planning of service delivering to such a community. The Italian community has very distinctive patterns of distribution that differentiate it from the total population.

As Burnley reports in his study on Italian absorption in urban Australia, some Italian concentrations in the inner suburbs of Carlton, the traditional 'Little Italy' of Melbourne, and Leichhardt, its equivalent in Sydney, were made up of several groups from geographically very circumscribed areas of Italy. Migrants from the Lipari Islands of Sicily, and from a few communities of the Province of Vicenza have formed the main Italian community core of Leichhardt, as well as Sicilians from the Province of Ragusa and the Commune of Vizzini have formed a large contingent in Brunswick, a local government authority of Melbourne now containing over 10,000 Italians.

On a smaller scale, but through similar patterns, other large communities of Italians were formed, since the first notable arrival of Italians of the 1920s and 1930s, in Adelaide, Perth and in minor cities of Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland. Most first-generation Italian migrants came to Australia by the nomination of a close relative or a friend, as forms of chain migration.

With particular reference to Western Australia, as previously stated, Italians began to arrive in more notable number after the discovery of gold in the Eastern Goldfields, in the early 1890s. The Australian Census of 1911 records the presence of over 2,000 Italians in Western Australia. Only two years before, the Italian writer Capra had visited the state and reported: "L'attuale emigrazione italiana in Australia e' poca cosa, e consta quasi esclusivamente di operai per le miniere e pel taglio della legna nella parte occidentale, e di lavoratori della canna da zucchero nel Queensland". (Present Italian migration to Australia is negligible, almost exclusively limited to miners and woodcutters in the western state, and sugarcane cutters in Queensland).

Capra details the professional distribution of Italians. Over two-thirds all Italians were employed either in mines or in the mine-related woodcutting industry (respectively about 400 and 800), both in the gold districts of Gwalia, Day Down, Coolgardie and Cue, and the forests of Karrawong and Lakeside. The remaining Italian workers were mainly involved in farming (250) and fishing (150). This work pattern of Italians in Western Australia did not change much with the more consistent migration flow of the late 1920s and early 1930s. During these two decades, Italian migrants to Australia continued to come from the north and central mountain areas of Italy, thus following a pattern of 'temporary' migration that pushed them to look for jobs with potential quick remuneration, as mining and woodcutting could offer. Changes in such patterns, together with the Italian mass-migration program of the 1950s and 1960s, have already been examined. Hence, the different component of regional origin of Italians in Western Australia and, subsequently, since the late 1950s, a more composite geographical distribution of Italian migrants in both urban and rural areas of the state.

According to the latest Census figures, Italy-born migrants in Western Australia are now over 26,000, with a prevalence of those settled in the Perth Metropolitan Area, unlike the pre-war spatial distribution.