There are multiple Chinatowns in the borough of Queens in New York City. The original Queens Chinatown emerged in Flushing, initially as a satellite of the original Manhattan Chinatown, before evolving its own identity, surpassing in scale the original Manhattan Chinatown, and subsequently, in turn, spawning its own satellite Chinatowns in Elmhurst, Corona, and eastern Queens. As of 2023, illegal Chinese immigration to New York has accelerated, and its Flushing neighborhood has become the present-day global epicenter receiving Chinese immigration as well as the international control center directing such migration. As of 2024, a significant new wave of Chinese Muslims is fleeing religious persecution in northwestern China’s Xinjiang Province and seeking religious freedom in New York, and concentrating in Queens.

The New York metropolitan area is home to the largest ethnic Chinese population outside Asia, comprising an estimated 893,697 uniracial individuals as of 2017, including at least 12 Chinatowns - six (or nine, including the emerging Chinatowns in Corona and Whitestone, Queens, and East Harlem, Manhattan) in New York City proper, and one each in Nassau County, Long Island; Cherry Hill, Edison, New Jersey; and Parsippany-Troy Hills, New Jersey, not to mention fledgling ethnic Chinese enclaves emerging throughout the New York City metropolitan area. Chinese Americans, as a whole, have had a significant tenure in New York City. The first Chinese immigrants came to Lower Manhattan around 1870, looking for the "golden" opportunities America had to offer. By 1880, the enclave around Five Points was estimated to have from 200 to as many as 1,100 members.

However, the Chinese Exclusion Act, which went into effect in 1882, caused an abrupt decline in the number of Chinese who immigrated to New York and the rest of the United States. Later, in 1943, the Chinese were given a small quota, and the community's population gradually increased until 1968, when the quota was lifted and the Chinese American population skyrocketed. In the past few years, the Cantonese dialect that has dominated the Chinatowns for decades is being rapidly swept aside by Mandarin Chinese, the national language of China and the lingua franca of most of the latest Chinese immigrants.

As the city proper with the largest ethnic Chinese population outside of Asia by a wide margin, estimated at 628,763 as of 2017, and as the primary destination for new Chinese immigrants, New York City is subdivided into official municipal boroughs, which themselves are home to significant Chinese populations, with Brooklyn and Queens, adjacently located on Long Island, leading the fastest growth. After the City of New York itself, the boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn encompass the largest Chinese populations, respectively, of all municipalities in the United States.

Borough	Chinese Americans residents
	number	percent
Queens	237,484	10.2
Brooklyn	205,753	7.9
Manhattan	107,609	6.6
Staten Island	13,620	2.9
The Bronx	6,891	0.5
New York City	573,388	1,881.1

Flushing Chinatown Chinese: 法拉盛
Neighborhood of Queens
41st Avenue in Flushing Chinatown
Country	United States
State	New York
City	New York City
Borough	Queens
Region	Long Island
Area codes	718, 347, 929, and 917

Chinatown, Flushing
Traditional Chinese	法拉盛華埠
Simplified Chinese	法拉盛华埠
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Fǎlāshèng Huá Bù Gwoyeu Romatzyh Faalashenq Hwabuh Wade–Giles Falasheng Hua Pu Tongyong Pinyin Fǎlāshèng Húa Bú IPA [fàláʂə̂ŋ xwǎ pʰû] Hakka Pha̍k-fa-sṳ Fa̍p-lâ-sin Fà-phu Yue: Cantonese Jyutping Faat3laa1sing4 Waa4 fau6 IPA [fāːtláːsȉŋ wȁːpòu] Southern Min Hokkien POJ Hoat-la-sēng Hôa-po͘ Tâi-lô Huat-la-sīng Huâ-poo

Flushing Chinatown (法拉盛華埠), or Mandarin Town Flushing (國語埠法拉盛) in Flushing, is one of the largest and fastest-growing ethnic Chinese enclaves outside Asia, as well as within New York City itself. Flushing Chinatown is in Main Street and the area to its west, particularly along Roosevelt Avenue, has become the primary nexus of Flushing Chinatown. However, Chinatown continues to expand southeastward along Kissena Boulevard and northward beyond Northern Boulevard. The Flushing–Main Street station is the busiest New York City Subway station outside Manhattan. The Flushing Chinatown houses over 30,000 individuals born in China alone, the largest Chinatown by this metric outside Asia and one of the largest and fastest-growing Chinatowns in the world. Flushing is undergoing rapid gentrification by Chinese transnational entities.

In 1645, Flushing was established by Dutch settlers on the eastern bank of Flushing Creek under charter of the Dutch West India Company and was part of the New Netherland colony. The settlement was named after the city of Vlissingen, in the southwestern Netherlands, the main port of the company; Flushing is the historic anglicization of the Dutch name of that town.

In 1664, the English took control of New Amsterdam, ending Dutch control of the colony, and renamed it the Province of New York. When Queens County was established in 1683, the "Town of Flushing" was one of the original five towns which comprised the county. Many historical references to Flushing are to this town, bounded from Newtown on the west by Flushing Creek (now often called the Flushing River), from Jamaica on the south by the "hills"—that is, the terminal moraine left by the last glacier, and from Hempstead on the east by what later became the Nassau County line. The town was dissolved in 1898 when Queens became a borough of New York City, and the term "Flushing" today usually refers to a much smaller area, including the former Village of Flushing and the areas immediately to the east and south. It was later settled by multiple ethnicities, including people of European, Hispanic, South-West Asian, African, and eventually East Asian ancestry.

In the 1970s, a Chinese community established a foothold in Flushing, whose demographic constituency had been predominantly white, interspersed with a small Japanese community. This wave of immigrants from Taiwan were the first to arrive and developed Flushing's Chinatown. It was known as Little Taipei (小台北) or Little Taiwan (小台灣). Many who arrived were the descendants of former soldiers and political supporters of Chiang Kai-shek and the Chinese Nationalist Party, which had lost the war against the Chinese Communist Party, and established themselves in Taiwan. Along with immigrants from Taiwan at this time, a large South Korean population has also called Flushing home.

Before the 1970s, Cantonese immigrants had vastly dominated Chinese immigration to New York City; however, during the 1970s, the Taiwanese immigrants were the first wave of Chinese immigrants who spoke Mandarin rather than Cantonese to arrive in New York City. Due to the dominance of Cantonese-speaking immigrants, who were largely working-class in Manhattan's Chinatown (Chinese: 紐約華埠; Jyutping: Nau2 Joek3 Waa4 Fau6), as well as the language barrier and poor housing conditions there, Taiwanese immigrants, who were more likely to have attained higher educational standards and socioeconomic status, could not relate to Manhattan's Chinatown, and chose to settle in Flushing instead. As the Taiwanese population grew, a Flushing Chinatown was created with a higher standard of living and better housing conditions.

Over the years, many new non-Cantonese ethnic Chinese immigrants from different regions and provinces of China started to arrive in New York City and settled in Flushing through word of mouth. This led to the creation of a more Mandarin-speaking Chinatown or Mandarin Town that gradually replaced Little Taipei. This wave of immigrants spoke Mandarin and various regional/provincial dialects. The early 1990s into the 2000s brought a wave of Fuzhounese Americans and Wenzhounese immigrants. Like the Taiwanese, they faced cultural and communication problems in Manhattan's predominantly Cantonese-speaking Chinatown and settled in Flushing as well as Elmhurst, Queens, which also has a significant Mandarin-speaking population. Flushing's Chinese population became very diverse over the next few decades as people from different provinces started to arrive, infusing their varied languages and cultures into this new "Chinatown." Due to the increased opening of Mainland China, there has also been a growing Northern Chinese population in Flushing.

Flushing and its Chinatown abuts the rapidly growing Long Island Koreatown (롱 아일랜드 코리아타운) as well.

The intersection of Main Street and Roosevelt Avenue, in the heart of the Chinatown neighborhood, hosts a large concentration of Chinese businesses, including Chinese restaurants. Chinese-owned businesses in particular dominate the area along Main Street and the blocks west of it, while Korean businesses are found in a substantial number east of Main Street and east of the Flushing Chinatown, on Union Street. The majority of signs and advertisements of stores in the area have become Chinese. Ethnic Chinese constitute an increasingly dominant proportion of the Asian population and as well as of the overall population in Flushing. Consequently, Flushing's Chinatown has grown rapidly enough to become the largest Chinatown outside Asia. The Flushing Chinatown has surpassed the original Manhattan Chinatown in size. As of 2023, illegal Chinese immigration to New York, and especially to Queens and its Flushing Chinatown, has accelerated. Flushing has become the present-day global epicenter receiving Chinese immigration as well as the international control center directing such migration.

A 1986 estimate by the Flushing Chinese Business Association approximated 60,000 Chinese in Flushing alone. By 1990, Asians constituted 41% of the population of the core area of Flushing, with Chinese in turn representing 41% of the Asian population. However, ethnic Chinese are constituting an increasingly dominant proportion of the Asian population as well as of the overall population in Flushing and its Chinatown. High rates of both legal and illegal immigration from Mainland China continue to spur the ongoing rise of the ethnic Chinese population in Flushing, as in all of New York City's Chinatowns.

Flushing's Chinatown ranks as New York City's largest Chinese community with 33,526 Chinese, up from 17,363, a 93% increase. The Brooklyn Chinatown is the second-largest Chinatown of NYC with 34,218 Chinese residents, up from 19,963 in 2000, a 71% increase. As for Manhattan's Chinatown, its Chinese population declined by 17%, from 34,554 to 28,681 since 2000, to become the third-largest.

Of all the Chinatowns of New York City, the Flushing Chinatown is also the most diverse, with large populations of Chinese groups from various regions of Mainland China and Taiwan. The Northeastern Chinese immigrants are increasingly becoming the largest Chinese group in Flushing.