The phenomenon of “Chinatown” has been of great interest to the general public as well as scholars. Movies and story books have made Chinatown to be exotic, mysterious, gangster filled, and sometimes, a gilded ghetto, an ethnopolis, a cultural diaspora as well as a model community. The authors of Chinatowns around the World seek to expose the social reality of Chinatowns with empirical data. The authors also examine the changing nature and functions of Chinatowns around the world while scrutinizing how factors emanating from larger societies and other external factors have shaped Chinatown development and transformation. The activities of the recent Chinese transnational migrants are also critically appraised.