Merchants of Haymarket: Building Chinatown and Beyond

Merchants of Haymarket: Putting Sydney’s Chinatown on the Map explores the stories of pioneering Chinese merchants who helped shape the Haymarket district in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Through historical photographs, documents and family histories, the exhibition reveals how Chinese businesses established a vibrant commercial community despite the restrictions of the White Australia policy.

Discover the people, enterprises and networks that laid the foundations of Sydney’s Chinatown and left a lasting imprint on the city’s cultural and economic life, while also connecting Haymarket to wider commercial networks across Asia.