Atherton Chinatown was one of many small settlements that developed in Australia during the nineteenth century as homes for the Chinese sojourners who arrived in great numbers to work on the goldfields. Most of these Chinese were males who came from poor areas in south west China and intended to work here until they had gathered enough capital to assure their financial security on their return home. For mutual support and to maintain contacts with their homeland, they lived and worked together, creating such Chinatowns within European settlements, or on their fringes.