Melbourne Chinatown and Chinese Museum, Little Bourke Street墨尔本小柏克街唐人街与澳华历史博物馆

Type

Overseas Daoist Temples

Location

Australia · Victoria · Melbourne · Around Little Bourke Street; the Chinese Museum is at 22 Cohen Place.

First built

the 1850s · The Chinese Museum opened in 1985; the Chinatown quarter is one of the longest continuously existing Chinese quarters in the southern hemisphere.

Overview

Melbourne's Chinatown on Little Bourke Street took shape during the Victorian gold rush of the 1850s and is one of the longest continuously existing Chinese quarters in the southern hemisphere; at its height it was densely packed with association halls, benevolent societies, shops, theaters and temples, with the Sze Yup, Nam Pon Soon, Heungshan and Hakka groups each occupying their own corner. Religious life within the quarter centered on association-hall shrines, while independent temples stood on the city's outskirts (such as the Sze Yup Guandi Temple in South Melbourne). The Chinese Museum opened on Cohen Place in 1985, systematically collecting and displaying the history of Chinese Victorians, and manages the ‘Chinese-Australian Historical Images in Australia’ image database, one of the most important archival sources for the study of Chinese temples in Australia. This entry covers the quarter and the institution together; it should be noted that Chinatown itself is not a religious site, nor is the museum a temple, but both are essential context for understanding the distribution and decline of Chinese temples in Australia.

Highlights

• Took shape in the 1850s, one of the longest-standing Chinese quarters in the southern hemisphere
• Association-hall shrines formed the core of the quarter's religious life
• The Chinese Museum opened in 1985
• Manages a database of Chinese-Australian historical images
• Not a religious site; included here as background context