Dandenong, a world of its own

GREATER Dandenong boasts a population built from all corners of the globe – but what about the countries that aren’t represented in the multicultural municipality?
There are up to 197 countries in the world – depending on the source – leaving roughly 50 unrepresented in Greater Dandenong.
To quote Lara Bingle’s famous Aussie advertising campaign, “so where the bloody hell are you?”
According to the 2011 Census, none of the city’s residents were born in The Bahamas, Botswana, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Swaziland or Turkmenistan.
Chad, Costa Rica, Cuba, Djibouti, Ecuador and Guatemala were also among countries missing from the list.
There were no residents hailing from Jamaica, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Madagascar or North Korea, either.
Ethiopia and Namibia just scraped onto the residents list, each with three nominating them as their country of origin.
After Australia, Vietnam was the most common birthplace with 11,737 people, followed by Sri Lanka with 5783 and Cambodia with 5438.
Greater Dandenong is home to about 145,000 people, according to 2012 figures, and about 60 per cent were born overseas – compared to metropolitan Melbourne at about 33 per cent.
From the Journal’s research, here’s an approximate list of the countries that didn’t make the list of Greater Dandenong residents’ birthplaces:
Andorra
Antigua and Barbuda
Bahamas
Barbados
Belize
Benin
Bhutan
Botswana
Burkina Faso
Cameroon
Cape Verde
Central African Republic
Chad
Comoros
Costa Rica
Ivory Coast
Cuba
Djibouti
Dominica
Ecuador
Equatorial Guinea
Gabon
Cambia
Grenada
Guatemala
Guinea-Bissau
Haiti
Jamaica
Kiribati
North Korea
Lesotho
Liechtenstein
Luxembourg
Madagascar
Mali
Mashall Islands
Mauritania
Micronesia
Monaco
Mongolia
Nicaragua
Niger
Palau
Panama
Paraguay
Sao Tome and Principe
Senegal
Suriname
Swaziland
Togo
Turkmenistan
Tuvalu
Vatican City
Yemen