Chinese immigration to Sydney dates back almost two hundred years, with Mak Sai Ying being the first recorded settler in Australia. The 2006 census showed that 221,995 people (5.39%) in Sydney reported Mandarin or Cantonese as the language they used at home. Chinese immigration was seen as part of a solution for a labour shortage in New South Wales from 1828 onwards, though the scale of immigration remained low until later in the nineteenth century.