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Thought it would be a fun idea to put together a list of quirky rural towns in Australia and New Zealand which, because of settlement/migration patterns, have a distinct foreign heritage. Here's some off the top of my head:
South Australia:
Hahndorf - German
Tanunda - German
Lobethal - German
One should mention that there were many towns with large Chinese populations not only in the Goldfields of Victoria, NSW and WA, but also in rural areas throughout the country. At one point I think a good proportion of the farmers in Innisfail were Chinese.
Fantastic responses so far guys. It's really cool learning about these places
Quote:
Originally Posted by The Postman
Broome - Japanese, Chinese, Filipino
The Tamar river valley (Launceston area) has quite a large Dutch population (by ancestry)
I never knew about the Dutch settlers in the Launceston area until I found out the Mayor Albert van Zetten was rallying the local Dutch community to wear orange to support the Netherlands in their World Cup soccer game against Spain in 2010!
It doesn't appear that there are any towns of distinctly "Dutch" heritage in the area, which is a bit of a letdown, but they do have this pretty cool Swiss town called Grindelwald (named after the picturesque village in Switzerland). Unlike Hepburn Springs in Victoria it seems like the folks that live there now are for the most part not descended from the Swiss settlers, but the town's facade at least remains recognisably Swiss. Check out a couple of streets http://www.roamfree.com/SharedImages...30/rm010_L.jpg
By the looks of it it seems the Italian settlers got fed up with living in the middle of nowhere and decided to head off. Is this the case? If so I wonder why they chose to settle a town so far from everything
^ I have been to that very Swiss 'village', Grindenwald, but as you say I don't think there are many Swiss settlers there.
I only knew about the Dutch there because my auntie, who used to live there, took me to a church that seemed mostly full of Dutch people (it was in English though, and they were Dutch Australians). They all seemed very tall though, lol, noticeably more so than Australians in general.
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