Vietnamese Australians

Vietnamese Australians (Vietnamese: Người Úc gốc Việt) are Australians of Vietnamese descent. Vietnamese Australians are one of the largest groups within the global Vietnamese diaspora.

At the 2021 census, 334,781 people stated that they had Vietnamese ancestry (whether alone or in combination with another ancestry), representing 1.3% of the Australian population. In 2021, the Australian Bureau of Statistics estimated that there were 268,170 Australian residents who were born in Vietnam.

Up until 1974 there were fewer than 1,998 Vietnam-born people in Australia. Following the takeover of South Vietnam by the North Vietnamese communist government in April 1975, Australia, being a signatory to the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, agreed to resettle its share of Vietnam-born refugees under a refugee resettlement plan between 1975 and 1985. After the initial intake of refugees in the late 1970s, there was a second immigration peak in 1983–84, most likely a result of the 1982 agreement between the Australian and Vietnamese governments (the Orderly Departure Program) which allowed relatives of Vietnamese Australians to leave Vietnam and migrate to Australia. A third immigration peak in the late 1980s seems to have been mainly due to Australia's family reunion scheme.

At the 2021 Census, 334,793 people stated that they had Vietnamese ancestry (whether alone or in combination with another ancestry), representing 1.3% of the Australian population. 257,997 people also were born in Vietnam at the time of the census, and 320,760 spoke Vietnamese at home. In 2021, Vietnamese Australians were the fourth largest Asian Australian ancestry after Chinese Australians, Indian Australians and Filipino Australians. In 2021, Vietnam was the sixth most common foreign country of birth.

In the 2001 census, first generation Australians of Vietnamese ancestry outnumbered second generation Australians with Vietnamese ancestry (74% to 26%) Relatively few people of Vietnamese ancestry stated another ancestry (6%). Among the leading ancestries, the proportion of people who spoke a language other than English at home was highest for those of Vietnamese (96%).

In Melbourne, the 2021 Census recorded 90,552 individuals born in Vietnam, and 117,501 with Vietnamese ancestry, and this number is on the increase. The community is mainly concentrated in the West of the City, in suburbs such as St Albans, Sunshine North, Braybrook, Footscray, and Sunshine west. There is also a very large community in the Southeast, primarily in the suburbs of Springvale, Noble Park, Springvale South, and Keysborough. The suburbs with the largest Vietnamese population according to the 2021 Census in Melbourne are listed below:

By Birthplace:

1. St Albans (Total population 38,042): 8,176 born in Vietnam or 21.5%