Chinatown - Penang

Chinatowns in Asia are widespread with a large concentration of overseas Chinese in East Asia and Southeast Asia and ethnic Chinese whose ancestors came from southern China - particularly the provinces of Guangdong, Fujian, and Hainan - and settled in countries such as Brunei, Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, India, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, Japan and Korea centuries ago—starting as early as the Tang Dynasty, but mostly notably in the 17th through the 19th centuries , and well into the 20th century. Today the Chinese diaspora in Asia is largely concentrated in Southeast Asia however the legacy of the once widespread overseas Chinese communities in Asia is evident in the many Chinatowns that are found across East, South and Southeast Asia. These ethnic Chinese arrived from southern mainland China and were mainly Chinese people of Cantonese , Hakka , Hokkien , and Teochew/Chaozhou stock and pockets of Hainanese, Hokchew and Henghwa in some countries. The largest Chinatown in Asia is located in Yokohama, Japan. . These early groups did not identify as hailing from Mainland China, but from their subregion of origin; for example, the Cantonese did not relate to the Hakka people. Binondo, located in Manila, Philippines is considered by many to be the oldest existing Chinatown in the world, having been officially established in 1594 by the Spanish colonial government in the Philippines that set off the area as a permanent settlement for Chinese who had converted to Christianity. The ethnic Chinese represent a large minority population in most of these countries—with Singapore being the exception where Chinese-origin Singaporeans form the majority of the population. Chinese Indonesians and Chinese Filipinos have adopted to Indonesian and Filipino ways, respectively. Thai Chinese have generally assimilated into the larger Thai population.
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