Vendor, a migrant from the Peoples Republic of China, sells vegetables native to China at a market in Paramaribo's tiny Chinatown. Suriname has a small ethnic-Chinese community that dates from colonial times but it is the recent influx of larger numbers of migrant workers from China which worries some Surinamese because the total population is less than 500,000 people. According to the Beijing's official media outlet, the Peoples Daily Newspaper online, China has 279 cities with 500,000 to 1 million people, 138 cities with 1 to 2 million people, and 33 cities with populations of over 2 million people; all of which exceed the entire population of this South American country. This massive potential for migration, much of it illegal, raises tension between citizens of this sparsely populated country and the migrant population.