The Chinatown or Chinese Quarter in Birmingham, England is nestled between the gay village and city centre in the Deritend disrict of the city.

Birmingham played a part in the first official trade mission from Britain to China. The story can be traced through letters in the Matthew Boulton Papers, Birmingham City Archives.

In 1792, Lord McCartney, the British Ambassador to China, wrote to Matthew Boulton, the great Birmingham businessman, requesting the presence of a skilled worker to accompany him on his posting. He wanted "a person capable of making judicious observations upon metals and modes of working." Clearly, the intention was to inquire into the state of Chinese industry to obtain intelligence information for commercial purposes. He was able to take to China a collection of Birmingham patterns and designs, including tools, buttons, coins, stained glass, buckets and toys to encourage British exports.

The mission had an effect. A letter to Matthew Boulton from James Cobb at East India House in London in 1794, noted how the Chinese Embassy was very interested in Birmingham manufactured goods: "all the ornamental articles were much admired and most of the articles of utility might very easily be brought into use amongst the Chinese." Birmingham's metal goods helped to pay for the vast quantities of tea, which Britain imported from that country.

By the start of the twentieth century Birmingham and East Asia were linked by trade, travel and education. Among the early commercial connections was a mission by a Cadbury's sales representative to Hong Kong in 1900.

Another Birmingham-based firm supplied goods to China. The Metropolitan company - which later became Metro-Cammell - built railway carriages for the Chinese imperial train .

A visit by the Duke Tsai Yee and members of the Chinese Special Commission to the Metropolitan Works in Washwood Heath on May 14th 1906 took place.

There were small numbers of Chinese people in the Birmingham area from at least the 1900s. Kellys Business Directory lists several Chinese owned hand laundries, for example Sing Hing Lee at 5 Stoney Lane, Sparkbrook in 1908, and Lee Hop in Mary Street, Balsall Heath the following year.

Chinese workers were starting to arrive in Birmingham by 1917. John Beard, one of the activists in the Workers' Union, wrote an article in the Workers' Union Record in December 1917 noting how Chinese people had come to Birmingham during the First World War. Most of these men were sailors on ships from Asia, which had been sunk by German U-boats.

In Birmingham these men were employed in the lowest paid sector of the metal trade and Beard encouraged the unionisation of these men to prevent them being used as blacklegs by employers. He reproduced a poster in Chinese to attract the workers to a meeting in Birmingham on October 21st 1917.

Like many of the migrant communities in the West Midlands, the present structure of the Chinese population took shape in the 1950s and 1960s. With Hong Kong still a British colony, and at that point relatively underdeveloped, men from the rural New Territories region of Hong Kong began to arrive in Britain. The expanding post-war economy, changing family structures and food tastes created a demand for convenience food, and Chinese catering businesses spread throughout the land.

In Birmingham, the first Chinese restaurants were established in the late 1950s, Tung Kong on Holloway Head near to the present China Town, Kam Ling on Livery Street, and Tung Hing at 15 Snow Hill. As people were getting educated in Chinese cuisine these restuarants did a roaring trade, through word of mouth.” Slow Boat opened in 1961 under St Martin’s Car Park, Heaven Bridge was on Smallbrook Queensway and by 1968 the Old Happy Gathering opened on Pershore Street, serving more authentic Cantonese cuisine.

By the early 1970s Chinese businesses and community associations were clustering around the Hurst Street (now in China Town) and Digbeth areas. Wing Yip opened the region’s first Chinese supermarket in Coventry Street. A Chinese Club on Bromsgrove Street reflected the political tensions of the day by showing Chinese communist inspired films.

The Hurst Street area was originally a settlement for Jewish immigrants then known as the froggery because it was a swampy, wet and poverty stricken place. As the Industrial Revolution took hold Italian immigrants took over Deritend and by 1918 the area was known as Little Italy. However the Italian community prospered and began to move to more upmarket areas of the city and eventually Little Italy disappeared. Deritend again became rundown. This made it a honeypot for poor Chinese immigrants in the 1950s, as Chinese restaurants became more commonplace, the area was soon dubbed Chinatown.

Community institutions were established to meet the social needs of this emerging population, in particular translation and support for victims of racial harassment. The Chinese Community Centre was formed in 1977, and by the 1980s several supplementary schools were teaching the Chinese language to British-born Chinese children at weekends.

The consolidation of Birmingham’s Chinese population – estimated at just over 5,000 in the 2001 population Census - is reflected in the development of the Chinatown area in the Arcadian Centre. This has become the setting for the annual Chinese New Year celebrations.

The first Chinese Community Centre was opened on Hurst street and doubled as a beancurd and beansprout factory. In 1969 Mr. Wing Yip and his brother Sammy opened their first specailist Chinese grocery store in Birmingham, the company is now one of the most successful Chinese businesses with several stores across England. The headquarters, of course, remain in Birmingham's Chinese Quarter. At the Head Office development there is a Chinese doctor, dentist, accountants, solicitors, travel agent, printers and the Bank of East Asia as well as on-site dining in the 250-seater Wing Wah chinese restaurant, and new Thai and Japanese restaurants. Wing Yip is now the foremost specialist food importer from the Far East and is the leading supplier of authentic Oriental products to the Chinese restaurant, take-away and domestic markets in the UK .

The China Town area was redeveloped in the 1990s and is now a centre of Birmingham's nightlife, with several restaurants, bars and clubs including the stylish 52% North , Sobar and the Birmingham Arcadian with well established lounge bars like for instance, Poppy Red and Arca bar.