Serbian Australians


Serbian Australians are citizens of Australia who are of Serbian birth or descent. In the 2011 census, there were 69,544 people in Australia of Serbian ancestry. Large Serbian communities and ethnic neighbourhoods can be found in Sydney, Melbourne, and Perth. There are many Serbian Australians that were born in today's Croatia as well as Bosnia-Herzegovina; due to this they are recorded under those statistics. The Serbian Australians are one of the largest Serb diaspora communities.

History

Serbs have migrated to Australia in various waves during the 20th century. A wave of immigrants came during and after World War II, the majority of whom were members of the royalist Chetnik movement, along with their families. Serbs were a large part of the immigrant community between 1948 and 1955. In 1951 the mostly pro-royalist Serbian communities founded a chapter of the Chicago-based Serbian National Defense Council in Sydney. In 1954 there were 6,118 Yugoslav immigrants in Victoria. Many of those who settled in Victoria had worked in Western Europe prior to coming. The 1961–1971 numbers increased to 49,755 people. After the Yugoslav Wars that broke the federal state of Yugoslavia, Serbia and Montenegro succeeded as a federal union.

Demographics

The 2011 census recorded people of Serbian ancestry, 55,114 of which were English and Serbian-speakers and 9,857 only Serbian-speakers. The 2006 census recorded 95,362 people of Serbian ancestry.
Estimations of the total number of ethnic Serbs vary between over 100,000, 350,000. Serbs mainly live around Sydney, mostly in Cabramatta, Liverpool and other south western Sydney areas.

Notable people