Maltese Australians are Australian citizens who are fully or partially of Maltese descent or Malta-born persons who reside in Australia. While most of them emigrated to Australia from Malta, a number emigrated from the United Kingdom where they had settled after having been expelled from Egypt, as holders of British passports, during the Suez Crisis. According to the 2021 Census, there were 198,989 people of Maltese descent in Australia and 35,413 Malta-born people residing in the country at the moment of the census.
Migrants from Malta and Gozo working in sugar -cane farms in Mackay, Queensland, 1910s
Maltese immigrants land in Sydney from the SS Partizanka, 1940s
The Maltese people are an ethnic group native to Malta who speak Maltese, a Semitic language and share a common culture and Maltese history. Malta, an island country in the Mediterranean Sea, is an archipelago that also includes an island of the same name together with the islands of Gozo and Comino ; people of Gozo, Gozitans are considered a subgroup of the Maltese.
Maltese women have historically worn the għonnella, a traditional dress which became a symbol of Maltese identity, religious devotion and modesty, which gradually disappeared after the 1960s.
Child Migrants' Memorial at the Valletta Waterfront, commemorating the 310 Maltese child migrants who travelled to Australia between 1950 and 1965.
Image: Klederdrachten van het eiland Ghozo Costume de l'île de Ghozo (titel op object) Voyage en Italie, en Sicile et à Malte 1778 (serietitel), RP T 00 494 17B
Image: Klederdrachten van eiland Gozo Costume de Ghozo (titel op object) Voyage en Italie, en Sicile et à Malte 1778 (serietitel), RP T 00 494 19C
