Urban Chinatowns exist in several major European cities. In Paris there are two Chinatowns: one where many Vietnamese β specifically ethnic Chinese refugees from Vietnam β have settled in the Quartier chinois in the 13th arrondissement of Paris which is Europe's largest Chinatown, and the other in Belleville in the northeast of Paris. Berlin , Germany has two Chinatowns, one in the East and one in the West. Antwerp , Belgium also has an upstart Chinese community.
Some European Chinatowns have long histories while others are still relatively new developments. Many early Chinese seamen settled in several European port cities and established several communities. The oldest Chinatown in Europe is in Liverpool , England. In the s, Mainland Chinese labourers from the Zhejiang province who remained in France established the first Chinatown of Paris. There are other Chinese who "jumped ship" to Europe after working as hired hands on European ships or docks.
As a legacy of European colonialism in Asia, many Asian subjects of British and Continental European empires immigrated to the colonizing country. During the s, immigrants from Hong Kong began migrating to the United Kingdom in large numbers, which resulted in the formation of London's second Chinatown in the Soho district. Some Chinese from the former Portuguese colony of Macau have resettled in Portugal. In , many more Chinese Indonesian immigrants arrived to escape the violent pogroms in Indonesia towards ethnic Chinese mainly as a result of the Asian financial crisis of After the fall of Saigon at the close of the Vietnam War , the ethnic Chinese boat people from Vietnam were resettled in France and Germany in the late s and s and began settling extensively in Paris's Chinatown, immensely revitalising the area during that time.
Paris's Chinatown currently has a vibrant Southeast Asian ethnic Chinese character, while its newer counterpart in Belleville largely consists of fairly recent Mainland Chinese. Although Mainland China was carved into several Western spheres of influence , the country as a whole was not a colony of a foreign maritime power.
Nevertheless, many mainland Chinese, legal and undocumented immigrants, have especially contributed to the development of Chinese communities in Europe, including the currently nascent Chinatown in the Esquilino district of Rome, Italy. There has been new immigration from the Fujian and Zhejiang provinces of China, many of whom are illegal immigrants who work in the unskilled service industriesβespecially in restaurants and garment sweatshopsβof Europe.
