Croatian Australian
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Croatian Australian is the seventh largest ethnic group in Australia, numbering 105,747 or 0.5 per cent of respondents in the 2001 Census. In Australia, the terms Croatian and Croat are interchangeable, despite their respective civic and ethnic meanings in both Croatian and most other varieties of English.
The census recorded 51,860 Croatia-born in Australia, although this excludes persons of Croat ethnicity and culture born elsewhere, such as Bosnia-Herzegovina (3,780).
Croats were first noticeable in Australia during the gold rushes of the 1850s in Victoria. At this time Croats were coded as "Austrians" because most of Croatia was a part of the Habsburg Empire. By Australian federation in 1901 there were many Croats - mainly from Dalmatia — in Australia, counted with Czechs, Hungarians, Serbs, Slovaks and others as "Austro-Hungarians". The establishment of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes from Austria-Hungary after the First World War — and its replacement Yugoslavia in 1945 — continued to make it difficult to separate out Croats from other ethinicities in Australia. Croats were not recorded separately until the 1996 Census. The Australian Department of Immigration believes many Croats holding old (and now long out of date) Yugoslav passports still record themselves as Yugoslavs in Australian censuses, over a decade after the disintegration of Yugoslavia.
Nevertheless, it is known that Croats formed a large proportion of those Yugoslavs who settled in Australia the 1960s and 1970s under Australian Government migration schemes. The Yugoslavia-born population reached 129,616 by the 1971 Census and 160,479 by the 1991 Census. The greatest number settled in Sydney and Melbourne, though Croats are well represented in every Australian city and region.
Croats in Australia and their Croatian Australian offspring are notable for their commitment to association football, with numerous clubs established throughout the country (for example, Sydney Croatia and Melbourne Croatia). These clubs nurtured the footballing talents of a large number of Croatian Australians, many of whom now play professionally overseas, including some with the Croatian national team and are also very well represented in the Australian national team. In the 2006 World Cup, there were five Croats playing for Australia and three Australians playing for Croatia — all were Croatian-Australians.
Croatian Australians have an exceptionally low rate of return migration to Croatia. In December 2001, the Department of Foreign Affairs estimated that there were 1,000 Australian citizens resident in Croatia. These must mostly be returned Croat emigrants with Australian citizenship, and their Croatian Australian children.
The Croatia-born are more likely than the general Australian population to live in Victoria (36.6 per cent compared to 24.7 per cent) and New South Wales (35.5 per cent to 33.3 per cent).
According to census data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in 2004, Croatian Australians are, by religion, 85.6 per cent Catholic, 0.9 per cent Anglican, 4.5 per cent Other Christian, 1.4 per cent Other Religions, and 7.6 per cent No Religion.
In 2001, the Croatian language was spoken at home by 69,900 persons in Australia. Croatian is the tenth most widely spoken language in the country after English, the Chinese languages, Italian, Greek, Arabic, Vietnamese, Spanish, Tagalog, German, and Macedonian.
[edit] List of notable Croatian Australians
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