Community hub
Recent from talks
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
Italian Australians
Italian Australians (Italian: italo-australiani) are Australian-born citizens who are fully or partially of Italian descent, whose ancestors were Italians who emigrated to Australia during the Italian diaspora, or Italian-born people in Australia.
Italian Australians constitute the sixth largest ancestry group in Australia, and one of the largest groups in the global Italian diaspora. At the 2021 census, 1,108,364 Australian residents nominated Italian ancestry (whether alone or in combination with another ancestry), representing 4.4% of the Australian population. The 2021 census found that 171,520 were born in Italy.
In 2021, there were 228,042 Australian residents who spoke Italian at home. The Italo-Australian dialect is prominent among Italian Australians who use the Italian language.
Italians have been arriving in Australia in a limited number since before the first fleet. Two individuals of Italian descent served on board the Endeavour when Captain James Cook arrived in Australia in 1770. Giuseppe Tuzi was among the convicts transported to Australia by the British in the First Fleet. Another early notable arrival, for his participation in Australian politics, was Raffaello Carboni who in 1853 participated with other miners in the uprising of Eureka Stockade and wrote the only complete eye-witness account of the uprising. This migration of northern Italian middle class professionals to Australia was spurred by the persecution from Austrian authorities – who controlled most of the northern regions of Italy until 1860 – especially after the failure of the revolts in many European cities in the 1840s and 1850s. As stated by D'Aprano in his work on the first Italian migrants in Victoria:
We find some Italian artisans in Melbourne and other colonies already in the 1840s, and 1841s, many of whom had participated in the defeated revolts against the despotic rulers of Modena, Naples, Venice, Milan, Bologna, Rome and other cities. They came to Australia to seek a better and more efficient life.
Through the 1840s and 1850s, the number of Italian migrants of peasant background who came for economic reasons increased.[citation needed] Nevertheless, they did not come from the landless, poverty-stricken agricultural working class but from rural families with at least sufficient means to pay their fare to Australia. Furthermore, in the late 1850s, some 2,000 Swiss Italians of Australia from Northern Italy migrated to the Victorian goldfields.
The number of Italians who arrived in Australia remained small during the whole of the nineteenth century. The voyage was costly and complex, as no direct shipping link existed between the two countries until the late 1890s.[citation needed] The length of the voyage was over two months before the opening of the Suez Canal. Italian migrants who intended to leave for Australia had to use German shipping lines that called at the ports of Genoa and Naples no more than once a month.[citation needed] Therefore, other overseas destinations such as the United States and the Latin American countries proved much more attractive, thus allowing the establishment of migration patterns more quickly and drawing far greater numbers.
Nevertheless, the Victorian gold rush of the 1850s attracted thousands of Italians and Swiss Italians to Australia. The drain on the labour supply occasioned by the gold rush caused Australia to also seek workmen from Europe for land use and the development of cultivation, both in New South Wales and Queensland. Unfortunately, the number of Italians who joined the Victorian gold mines is obscure, and until 1871 Italians did not receive a special place in any Australian census figures. By 1881, the first year of census figures on Italian migrants in all States, there were 521 Italians (representing 0.066% of the total population) in New South Wales, and 947 (0.10%) in Victoria, of whom one-third were in Melbourne and the rest were in the goldfields.[citation needed] Queensland had 250 Italians, South Australia 141, Tasmania 11 and Western Australia just 10. Such figures, from Australian sources, correspond to similar figures from Italian sources.[citation needed]
Hub AI
Italian Australians AI simulator
(@Italian Australians_simulator)
Italian Australians
Italian Australians (Italian: italo-australiani) are Australian-born citizens who are fully or partially of Italian descent, whose ancestors were Italians who emigrated to Australia during the Italian diaspora, or Italian-born people in Australia.
Italian Australians constitute the sixth largest ancestry group in Australia, and one of the largest groups in the global Italian diaspora. At the 2021 census, 1,108,364 Australian residents nominated Italian ancestry (whether alone or in combination with another ancestry), representing 4.4% of the Australian population. The 2021 census found that 171,520 were born in Italy.
In 2021, there were 228,042 Australian residents who spoke Italian at home. The Italo-Australian dialect is prominent among Italian Australians who use the Italian language.
Italians have been arriving in Australia in a limited number since before the first fleet. Two individuals of Italian descent served on board the Endeavour when Captain James Cook arrived in Australia in 1770. Giuseppe Tuzi was among the convicts transported to Australia by the British in the First Fleet. Another early notable arrival, for his participation in Australian politics, was Raffaello Carboni who in 1853 participated with other miners in the uprising of Eureka Stockade and wrote the only complete eye-witness account of the uprising. This migration of northern Italian middle class professionals to Australia was spurred by the persecution from Austrian authorities – who controlled most of the northern regions of Italy until 1860 – especially after the failure of the revolts in many European cities in the 1840s and 1850s. As stated by D'Aprano in his work on the first Italian migrants in Victoria:
We find some Italian artisans in Melbourne and other colonies already in the 1840s, and 1841s, many of whom had participated in the defeated revolts against the despotic rulers of Modena, Naples, Venice, Milan, Bologna, Rome and other cities. They came to Australia to seek a better and more efficient life.
Through the 1840s and 1850s, the number of Italian migrants of peasant background who came for economic reasons increased.[citation needed] Nevertheless, they did not come from the landless, poverty-stricken agricultural working class but from rural families with at least sufficient means to pay their fare to Australia. Furthermore, in the late 1850s, some 2,000 Swiss Italians of Australia from Northern Italy migrated to the Victorian goldfields.
The number of Italians who arrived in Australia remained small during the whole of the nineteenth century. The voyage was costly and complex, as no direct shipping link existed between the two countries until the late 1890s.[citation needed] The length of the voyage was over two months before the opening of the Suez Canal. Italian migrants who intended to leave for Australia had to use German shipping lines that called at the ports of Genoa and Naples no more than once a month.[citation needed] Therefore, other overseas destinations such as the United States and the Latin American countries proved much more attractive, thus allowing the establishment of migration patterns more quickly and drawing far greater numbers.
Nevertheless, the Victorian gold rush of the 1850s attracted thousands of Italians and Swiss Italians to Australia. The drain on the labour supply occasioned by the gold rush caused Australia to also seek workmen from Europe for land use and the development of cultivation, both in New South Wales and Queensland. Unfortunately, the number of Italians who joined the Victorian gold mines is obscure, and until 1871 Italians did not receive a special place in any Australian census figures. By 1881, the first year of census figures on Italian migrants in all States, there were 521 Italians (representing 0.066% of the total population) in New South Wales, and 947 (0.10%) in Victoria, of whom one-third were in Melbourne and the rest were in the goldfields.[citation needed] Queensland had 250 Italians, South Australia 141, Tasmania 11 and Western Australia just 10. Such figures, from Australian sources, correspond to similar figures from Italian sources.[citation needed]