Communities

Chinese Communities

The China-born members of Auckland’s Chinese community has grown by over 3000% since 1986

The Chinese ethnic group comprised 171,411 people or 4.3 percent of people that stated an ethnic group living in New Zealand on 5 March 2013.

The Chinese immigrants are generally well-educated professionals or business people with internationally transferable skills. In contrast to the pioneers of a century ago, the new Chinese migrants tend to be well informed and articulate; their desire for recognition and integration has also made them active in philanthropy and politics.

One of the largest sub categories of the Chinese community are the many international students who largely inhabit the inner city and fringe areas. It is within this 15-30 age group that the Chinese community are slightly more representative than in the NZ population as a whole. A high number of the Chinese population tend to be business owners, predominantly in the areas of retail and restaurants.

Geographically, the Chinese community in Auckland is spread across the city centre and in the larger suburbs of Howick, Pakuranga, Mount Albert and Mount Roskill. These areas have seen sustained growth, a reflection of increasing levels of migrants into the community who are both highly educated and skilled.

Media wise, the Chinese population is one of the best served communities with a wide variety of media options, including dedicated television services, radio stations and many free Chinese language publications (currently more than 20 in the Auckland area.

As a whole, Mandarin is the most widely spoken of the Chinese dialects, closely followed by Cantonese. In print, most of the publications use Traditional Chinese.

The Internet is another extremely popular medium through which the Chinese community gets information. One of the most popular websites being Auckland based SkyKiwi, which regularly appears in the top 10 Hitwise websites. There are also many others including Chinese Town and 180net, to name a couple.

The Chinese ethnic group comprised 171,411 people or 4.3 percent of people that stated an ethnic group living in New Zealand on 5 March 2013.

For people identifying with the Chinese ethnic group living in New Zealand on 5 March 2013:

• The most common region this group lived in was Auckland Region (69.0 percent or 118,230 people).
• The median age (half are younger and half are older than this age) was 31.3 years.
• 26.6 percent (45,213 people) were born in New Zealand and 73.4 percent (124,494 people) were born overseas.
• 86.7 percent (114,432 people) aged 15 years and over had a formal qualification.