ROMANIAN URBAN AREAS: TERRITORIAL, ECONOMIC AND SOCIO-CULTURAL HALLMARKS OF THE CHINESE MINORITY

Abstract

Since 1990s, many Chinese immigrants have come to Romania and they are numbering, nowadays, 2 017 people (83% of the total legal Chinese residents live in urban areas). The aim of this paper is to analyze the territorial, economic and socio-cultural hallmarks of the Chinese minority established in the Romanian urban areas. To meet this objective, both qualitative (interviews and observations) and quantitative (selecting, structuring and valorizing the statistical raw data) methods were used. This study is important due to its multi-territorial levels approach and to its results (e.g. revealing that the economic hallmark influences and shapes the territorial traces of the Chinese minority, identifying the Chinese children as being a sort of ”driving force” which would facilitate the social and linguistic integration of the Chinese minority into the Romanian society) which could support and suggest new topics for the geographical research.