Sydney R. Jones

Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountains to the west, Hawkesbury to the north, the Royal National Park to the south and Macarthur to the south-west. Sydney is made up of 658 suburbs, spread across 33 local government areas. Residents of the city are known as "Sydneysiders". The 2021 census recorded the population of Greater Sydney as 5,231,150, meaning the city is home to approximately 66% of the state's population. Estimated resident population, 30 June 2017. Nicknames of the city include the 'Emerald City' and the 'Harbour City'.

Aboriginal Australians have inhabited the Greater Sydney region for at least 30,000 years, and Aboriginal engravings and cultural sites are common throughout Greater Sydney. The traditional custodians of the land on which modern Sydney stands are the clans of the Darug, Dharawal and Eora peoples.

During his first Pacific voyage in 1770, James Cook charted the eastern coast of Australia, making landfall at Botany Bay. In 1788, the First Fleet of convicts, led by Arthur Phillip, founded Sydney as a British penal colony, the first European settlement in Australia. After World War II, Sydney experienced mass migration and by 2021 over 40 per cent of the population was born overseas. Foreign countries of birth with the greatest representation are Mainland China, India, England, Vietnam and the Philippines.

Despite being one of the most expensive cities in the world, Sydney frequently ranks in the top ten most liveable cities in the world. It is classified as an Alpha global city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network, indicating its influence in the region and throughout the world. Ranked eleventh in the world for economic opportunity, Sydney has an advanced market economy with strengths in finance, manufacturing and tourism.http://www.smh.com.au/national/tough-week-for-a-sydney-success-story-20120217-1te9q.html?skin=text-only Established in 1850, the University of Sydney was Australia's first university and is regarded as one of the world's leading universities.http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-septerankings/2016#sorting=rank+region=+country=319+faculty=+stars=false+search=

Sydney has hosted major international sporting events such as the 2000 Summer Olympics. The city is among the top fifteen most-visited cities in the world, with millions of tourists coming each year to see the city's landmarks. The city has over of nature reserves and parks, and its notable natural features include Sydney Harbour and Royal National Park. The Sydney Harbour Bridge and the World Heritage-listed Sydney Opera House are major tourist attractions. Central Station is the hub of Sydney's rail network, and the main passenger airport serving the city is Kingsford Smith Airport, one of the world's oldest continually operating airports.

Toponymy

In 1788, Captain Arthur Phillip, the first governor of New South Wales, named the cove where the first British settlement was established Sydney Cove after Home Secretary Thomas Townshend, 1st Viscount Sydney. The cove was called ''Warrane'' by the Aboriginal inhabitants. Phillip considered naming the settlement Albion, but this name was never officially used. By 1790 Phillip and other officials were regularly calling the township Sydney. The town of Sydney was declared a city in 1842.

The Gadigal (Cadigal) clan, whose territory stretches along the southern shore of Port Jackson from South Head to Darling Harbour, are the traditional owners of the land on which the British settlement was initially established, and call their territory ''Gadi'' (''Cadi''). Aboriginal clan names within the Sydney region were often formed by adding the suffix "-gal" to a word denoting the name for their territory, a specific place in their territory, a food source, or totem. The modern Greater Sydney area covers the traditional lands of 28 known Aboriginal clans.

History

First inhabitants of the region

The first people to inhabit the area now known as Sydney were Aboriginal Australians who had migrated from northern Australia and before that from southeast Asia. Flaked pebbles found in Western Sydney's gravel sediments might indicate human occupation from 45,000 to 50,000 years BP, while radiocarbon dating has shown evidence of human activity in the Sydney region from around 30,000 years ago. Prior to the arrival of the British, there were 4,000 to 8,000 Aboriginal people in the greater Sydney region.

The inhabitants subsisted on fishing, hunting, and gathering plant foods and shellfish. The diet of the coastal clans was more reliant on seafoods whereas the food of hinterland clans was more focused on forest animals and plants. The clans had distinctive sets of equipment and weapons mostly made of stone, wood, plant materials, bone and shell. They also differed in their body decorations, hairstyles, songs and dances. Aboriginal clans had a rich ceremonial life which was part of a belief system centering on ancestral, totemic and supernatural beings. People from different clans and language groups came together to participate in initiation and other ceremonies. These occasions fostered trade, marriages and clan alliances.Attenbrow (2010). pp. 28,158

The earliest British settlers recorded the word 'Eora' as an Aboriginal term meaning either 'people' or 'from this place'. The clans of the Sydney area occupied land with traditional boundaries. There is debate, however, about which group or nation these clans belonged to, and the extent of differences in language, dialect and initiation rites. The major groups were the coastal Eora people, the Dharug (Darug) occupying the inland area from Parramatta to the Blue Mountains, and the Dharawal people south of Botany Bay. Darginung and Gundungurra languages were spoken on the fringes of the Sydney area.Attenbrow (2010). pp. 22-29

The first meeting between Aboriginals and British explorers occurred on 29 April 1770 when Lieutenant James Cook landed at Botany Bay (Kamay) and encountered the Gweagal clan. Two Gweagal men opposed the landing party and in the confrontation one of them was shot and wounded. Cook and his crew stayed at Botany Bay for a week, collecting water, timber, fodder and botanical specimens and exploring the surrounding area. Cook sought to establish relations with the Aboriginal population without success.

Convict town (1788–1840)

Britain had been sending convicts to its American colonies for most of the eighteenth century, and the loss of these colonies in 1783 was the impetus for the decision to establish a penal colony at Botany Bay. Proponents of colonisation also pointed to the strategic importance of a new base in the Asia-Pacific region and its potential to provide much-needed timber and flax for the navy.

The First Fleet of 11 ships under the command of Captain Arthur Phillip arrived in Botany Bay in January 1788. It consisted of more than a thousand settlers, including 736 convicts. The fleet soon moved to the more suitable Port Jackson where a settlement was established at Sydney Cove on 26 January 1788. The colony of New South Wales was formally proclaimed by Governor Phillip on 7 February 1788. Sydney Cove offered a fresh water supply and a safe harbour, which Philip described as being, 'with out exception the finest Harbour in the World ..Here a Thousand Sail of the Line may ride in the most perfect Security'.

The settlement was planned to be a self-sufficient penal colony based on subsistence agriculture. Trade and ship building were banned in order to keep the convicts isolated. However, the soil around the settlement proved poor and the first crops failed, leading to several years hunger and strict food rationing. The food crisis was relieved with the arrival of the Second Fleet in mid-1790 and the Third Fleet in 1791. Former convicts received small grants of land, and government and private farms spread to the more fertile lands around Parramatta, Windsor and Camden on the Cumberland Plain. By 1804, the colony was self-sufficient in food.

A smallpox epidemic in April 1789 killed about half the Indigenous population of the Sydney region. In November 1790 Bennelong led a group of survivors of the Sydney clans into the settlement, establishing a continuous presence of Aboriginal Australians in settled Sydney.

Phillip had been given no instructions for urban development, but in July 1788 submitted a plan for the new town at Sydney Cove. It included a wide central avenue, a permanent Government House, law courts, hospital and other public buildings, but no provision for warehouses, shops, or other commercial buildings. Phillip promptly ignored his own plan, and unplanned development became a feature of Sydney's topography.After the departure of Phillip in December 1792, the colony's military officers began acquiring land and importing consumer goods obtained from visiting ships. Former convicts also engaged in trade and opened small businesses. Soldiers and former convicts built houses on Crown land, with or without official permission, in what was now commonly called Sydney town. Governor William Bligh (180608) imposed restrictions on trade and commerce in the town and ordered the demolition of buildings erected on Crown land, including some owned by past and serving military officers. The resulting conflict culminated in the Rum Rebellion of 1808, in which Bligh was deposed by the New South Wales Corps.

Governor Lachlan Macquarie (18101821), played a leading role in the development of Sydney and New South Wales, establishing a bank, a currency and a hospital. He employed a planner to design the street layout of Sydney and commissioned the construction of roads, wharves, churches, and public buildings. Parramatta Road, linking Sydney and Parramatta, was opened in 1811 and a road across the Blue Mountains was completed in 1815, opening the way for large scale farming and grazing in the lightly-wooded pastures west of the Great Dividing Range.

Following the departure of Macquarie, official policy encouraged the emigration of free British settlers to New South Wales. Immigration to the colony increased from 900 free settlers in 1826-30 to 29,000 in 1836-40, many of whom settled in Sydney. By the 1840s Sydney exhibited a geographic divide between poor and working class residents living west of the Tank Stream in areas such as The Rocks, and the more affluent residents living to its east. Free settlers, free-born residents and former convicts now represented the vast majority of the population of Sydney, leading to increasing public agitation for responsible government and an end to transportation. Transportation to New South Wales ceased in 1840.

Conflict on the Cumberland Plain

In 1804, Irish convicts led around 300 rebels in the Castle Hill Rebellion, an attempt to march on Sydney, commandeer a ship, and sail to freedom. Poorly armed, and with their leader Philip Cunningham captured, the main body of insurgents were routed by about 100 troops and volunteers at Rouse Hill. At least 39 convicts were killed in the uprising and subsequent executions.

As the colony spread to the more fertile lands around the Hawkesbury river, north-west of Sydney, conflict between the settlers and the Darug people intensified, reaching a peak from 1794 to 1810. Bands of Darug people, led by Pemulwuy and later by his son Tedbury, burned crops, killed livestock and raided settler huts and stores in a pattern of resistance that was to be repeated as the colonial frontier expanded. A military garrison was established on the Hawkesbury in 1795. The death toll from 1794 to 1800 was 26 settlers and up to 200 Darug.

Conflict again erupted from 1814 to 1816 with the expansion of the colony into Dharawal country in the Nepean region south-west of Sydney. Following the deaths of several settlers, Governor Macquarie despatched three military detachments into Dharawal lands, culminating in the Appin massacre (April 1816) in which at least 14 Aboriginal people were killed.

Colonial city (1841–1900)

The New South Wales Legislative Council was transformed into a semi-elected body in 1842. The town of Sydney was declared a city the same year, and a governing council established, elected on a restrictive property franchise.The discovery of gold in New South Wales and Victoria in 1851 initially caused some economic disruption as male workers moved to the goldfields. Melbourne soon overtook Sydney as Australia's largest city, leading to an enduring rivalry between the two cities. However, increased immigration from overseas and wealth from gold exports increased demand for housing, consumer goods, services and urban amenities.Goodman, David (2013). "The gold rushes of the 1850s". ''The Cambridge History of Australia, Volume I''. pp. 180–81. The New South Wales government also stimulated growth by investing heavily in railways, trams, roads, ports, telegraph, schools and urban services. The population of Sydney and its suburbs grew from 95,600 in 1861 to 386,900 in 1891. The city developed many of its characteristic features. The growing population packed into rows of terrace houses in narrow streets. New public buildings of sandstone abounded, including at the University of Sydney (1854–61), the Australian Museum (1858–66), the Town Hall (1868–88), and the General Post Office (1866–92). Elaborate coffee palaces and hotels were erected. Exotic plants such as jacarandas and frangipani were introduced in parks and gardens. Daylight bathing at Sydney's beaches was banned, but segregated bathing at designated ocean baths was popular.

Drought, the winding down of public works and a financial crisis led to economic depression in Sydney throughout most of the 1890s. Meanwhile, the Sydney-based premier of New South Wales, George Reid, became a key figure in the process of federation.

State capital (1901–present)

When the six colonies federated on 1 January 1901, Sydney became the capital of the State of New South Wales. The spread of bubonic plague in 1900 prompted the new state government to modernise the wharves and demolish inner-city slums. The outbreak of the First World War in 1914 saw more Sydney males volunteer for the armed forces than the Commonwealth authorities could process, and helped reduce unemployment in the city. Those returning from the war in 1918 were promised "homes fit for heroes" in new suburbs such as Daceyville and Matraville. "Garden suburbs" and mixed industrial and residential developments also grew along the rail and tram corridors. The population reached one million in 1926, after Sydney had regained its position as the most populous city in Australia. The government created jobs with massive public projects such as the electrification of the Sydney rail network and building the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
Sydney was more severely affected by the Great Depression of the 1930s than regional NSW or Melbourne. New building almost came to a standstill, and by 1933 the unemployment rate for male workers was 28 per cent, but over 40 per cent in working class areas such as Alexandria and Redfern. Many families were evicted from their homes and shanty towns grew along coastal Sydney and Botany Bay, the largest being "Happy Valley" at La Perouse. The Depression also exacerbated political divisions. In March 1932, when populist Labor premier Jack Lang attempted to open the Sydney Harbour Bridge he was upstaged by Francis de Groot of the far-right New Guard, who slashed the ribbon with a sabre.

In January 1938, Sydney celebrated the Empire Games and the sesquicentenary of European settlement in Australia. One journalist wrote, "Golden beaches. Sun tanned men and maidens...Red-roofed villas terraced above the blue waters of the harbour...Even Melbourne seems like some grey and stately city of Northern Europe compared with Sydney's sub-tropical splendours." Meanwhile, a congress of the "Aborigines of Australia", declared 26 January "A Day of Mourning" for "the whiteman's seizure of our country."

With the outbreak of war in 1939, Sydney experienced a surge in industrial development to meet the needs of a wartime economy. Unemployment virtually disappeared and women moved into jobs previously male preserves. Sydney was attacked by Japanese submarines in May and June 1942 with 21 lives lost. Households throughout the city built air raid shelters and performed drills.

A post-war immigration and baby boom saw a rapid increase in Sydney's population and the spread of low-density housing in suburbs throughout the Cumberland Plain. Immigrantsmostly from Britain and continental Europeand their children accounted for over three-quarters of Sydney's population growth between 1947 and 1971. The newly created Cumberland County Council oversighted low-density residential developments, the largest at Green Valley and Mount Druitt. Older residential centres such as Parramatta, Bankstown and Liverpool became suburbs of the metropolis. Manufacturing, protected by high tariffs, employed over a third of the workforce from 1945 to the 1960s. However, as the long post-war economic boom progressed, retail and other service industries became the main source of new jobs.

An estimated one million onlookers, most of the city's population, watched as Queen Elizabeth II landed in 1954 at Farm Cove where Captain Phillip had raised the Union Jack 165 years earlier, commencing her Australian Royal Tour. It was the first time a reigning monarch stepped onto Australian soil.

Increasing high rise development in Sydney and the expansion of suburbs beyond the "green belt" envisaged by the planners of the 1950s resulted in community protests. In the early 1970s, trade unions and resident action groups imposed green bans on development projects in historic areas such as The Rocks. Federal, State and local governments subsequently introduced a range of heritage and environmental legislation. The Sydney Opera House was also controversial for its cost and disputes between architect Jørn Utzon and government officials. However, soon after it opened in 1973 it became a major tourist attraction and symbol of the city. The progressive reduction in tariff protection from 1974 began the transformation of Sydney from a manufacturing centre focused on the domestic market to a "world city" providing financial, commercial, cultural and educational services to local residents and Australian and overseas markets. From the 1980s, overseas immigration to Sydney grew rapidly, with Asia, the Middle East and Africa becoming major sources of immigrants. By 2021, the population of Sydney was over 5.2 million, with 40% of the population born overseas. China and India overtook England as the largest source countries for overseas-born residents.

Geography

Topography

Sydney is a coastal basin with the Tasman Sea to the east, the Blue Mountains to the west, the Hawkesbury River to the north, and the Woronora Plateau to the south. The inner City Of Sydney measures , the Greater Sydney region (which includes the non-metropolitan areas of Central Coast, Blue Mountains, Wollondilly, Wollongong and Shellharbour) covers , and the city's urban area is in size. Metropolitan Sydney's boundaries stretch 88 kilometres (55 mi) from Palm Beach in the north to Waterfall in the south, and 70 kilometres (43 mi) from Bondi Beach in the east to Emu Plains in the west.

Sydney spans two geographic regions. The Cumberland Plain lies to the south and west of the Harbour and is relatively flat. The Hornsby Plateau is located to the north and is dissected by steep valleys. The flat areas of the south were the first to be developed as the city grew. It was not until the construction of the Sydney Harbour Bridge that the northern reaches of the coast became more heavily populated. Seventy surf beaches can be found along its coastline with Bondi Beach being one of the most famous.

The Nepean River wraps around the western edge of the city and becomes the Hawkesbury River before reaching Broken Bay. Most of Sydney's water storages can be found on tributaries of the Nepean River. The Parramatta River is mostly industrial and drains a large area of Sydney's western suburbs into Port Jackson. The southern parts of the city are drained by the Georges River and the Cooks River into Botany Bay.

According to calculations by the Senseable City Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), 25.9% of Sydney is covered by trees, making it the third largest city in the world with the most trees after Singapore and Oslo, respectively, tying with Vancouver.

Geology

Sydney is made up of mostly Triassic rock with some recent igneous dykes and volcanic necks (typically found in the Prospect dolerite intrusion, west of Sydney). The Sydney Basin was formed when the Earth's crust expanded, subsided, and filled with sediment in the early Triassic period. The sand that was to become the sandstone of today was washed there by rivers from the south and northwest and laid down between 360 and 200 million years ago. The sandstone has shale lenses and fossil riverbeds.

The Sydney Basin bioregion includes coastal features of cliffs, beaches, and estuaries. Deep river valleys known as rias were carved during the Triassic period in the Hawkesbury sandstone of the coastal region where Sydney now lies. The rising sea level between 18,000 and 6,000 years ago flooded the rias to form estuaries and deep harbours. Port Jackson, better known as Sydney Harbour, is one such ria. Sydney features two major soil types; sandy soils (which originate from the Hawkesbury sandstone) and clay (which are from shales and volcanic rocks), though some soils may be a mixture of the two.

Directly overlying the older Hawkesbury sandstone is the Wianamatta shale, a geological feature found in western Sydney that was deposited in connection with a large river delta during the Middle Triassic period which shifted over time from west to east. The Wianamatta shale generally comprises fine grained sedimentary rocks such as shales, mudstones, ironstones, siltstones and laminites, with less common sandstone units. The Wianamatta Group is made up of the following units (listed in stratigraphic order): Bringelly Shale, Minchinbury Sandstone and Ashfield Shale.

Ecology

The most prevalent plant communities in the Sydney region are grassy woodlands (i.e. savannas) and some pockets of dry sclerophyll forests, which consist of eucalyptus trees, casuarinas, melaleucas, corymbias and angophoras, with shrubs (typically wattles, callistemons, grevilleas and banksias), and a semi-continuous grass in the understory. The plants in this community tend to have rough and spiky leaves, as they're grown in areas with low soil fertility. Sydney also features a few areas of wet sclerophyll forests which are found in the wetter, elevated areas in the north and the northeast. These forests are defined by straight, tall tree canopies with a moist understory of soft-leaved shrubs, tree ferns and herbs.

The predominant vegetation community in Sydney is the Cumberland Plain Woodland, which is found in Western Sydney ( Cumberland Plain), followed by the Sydney Turpentine-Ironbark Forest which is scattered in the Inner West and Northern Sydney,Recovering bushland on the Cumberland Plain
Department of Environment and Conservation (NSW). (2005). Recovering Bushland on the Cumberland Plain: Best practice guidelines for the management and restoration of bushland. Department of Environment and Conservation (NSW), Sydney. Retrieved 12 September 2022. the Eastern Suburbs Banksia Scrub in the coastline and the Blue Gum High Forest which is scantily present in the North Shore – All of which are critically endangered. The city also includes the Sydney Sandstone Ridgetop Woodland found in Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park on the Hornsby Plateau to the north.

Sydney is home to dozens of bird species, which commonly include the Australian raven, Australian magpie, crested pigeon, noisy miner and the pied currawong, among others. Introduced bird species ubiquitously found in Sydney are the common myna, common starling, house sparrow and the spotted dove. Reptile species are also numerous and predominantly include skinks. Sydney has a few mammal and spider species, such as the grey-headed flying fox and the Sydney funnel-web, respectively, and has a huge diversity of marine species inhabiting its harbour and many beaches.

Climate

Under the Köppen–Geiger classification, Sydney has a humid subtropical climate (''Cfa'') with "warm ndsometimes hot" summers and "cool" winters, as described by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The El Niño–Southern Oscillation, the Indian Ocean Dipole and the Southern Annular Mode play an important role in determining Sydney's weather patterns: drought and bushfire on the one hand, and storms and flooding on the other, associated with the opposite phases of the oscillation in Australia. The weather is moderated by proximity to the ocean, and more extreme temperatures are recorded in the inland western suburbs.

At Sydney's primary weather station at Observatory Hill, extreme temperatures have ranged from on 18 January 2013 to on 22 June 1932. An average of 14.9 days a year have temperatures at or above in the central business district (CBD). In contrast, the metropolitan area averages between 35 and 65 days, depending on the suburb. The hottest day in the Sydney metropolitan area occurred in Penrith on 4 January 2020, where a high of was recorded. The average annual temperature of the sea ranges from in September to in February. Sydney has an average of 7.2 hours of sunshine per day and 109.5 clear days annually. Due to the inland location, frost is recorded early in the morning in Western Sydney a few times in winter. Autumn and spring are the transitional seasons, with spring showing a larger temperature variation than autumn.

Sydney experiences an urban heat island effect. This makes certain parts of the city more vulnerable to extreme heat, including coastal suburbs. In late spring and summer, temperatures over are not uncommon, though hot, dry conditions are usually ended by a southerly buster, a powerful southerly that brings gale winds and a rapid fall in temperature. Since Sydney is downwind of the Great Dividing Range, it occasionally experiences dry, westerly foehn winds typically in winter and early spring (which are the reason for its warm maximum temperatures). Westerly winds are intense when the Roaring forties (or the Southern Annular Mode) shift towards southeastern Australia, where they may damage homes and affect flights, in addition to making the temperature seem colder than it actually is.

Rainfall has a moderate to low variability and has historically been fairly uniform throughout the year, although in recent years it has been more summer-dominant and erratic. Precipitation is usually higher in late summer through to early winter and lower in late winter to early spring. In late autumn and winter, east coast lows may bring large amounts of rainfall, especially in the CBD. In the warm season black nor'easters are usually the cause of heavy rain events, though other forms of low-pressure areas, including remnants of ex-cyclones, may also bring heavy deluge and afternoon thunderstorms, particularly in the western suburbs. Snowfall was last reported in the Sydney City area in 1836, while a fall of graupel, or soft hail, in Lindfield, Roseville and Killara was mistaken by many for snow, in July 2008. In 2009, dry conditions brought a severe dust storm towards the city.

Regions

The regions of Sydney include the CBD or City of Sydney (colloquially referred to as 'the City') and Inner West, the Eastern Suburbs, Southern Sydney (including St George and Sutherland Shire), Greater Western Sydney (including South Western Sydney, Hills District and the Macarthur Region), and Northern Sydney (including the North Shore and Northern Beaches). The Greater Sydney Commission divides Sydney into five districts based on the 33 LGAs in the metropolitan area; the Western City, the Central City, the Eastern City, the North District, and the South District. The Australian Bureau of Statistics includes City of Central Coast (the former Gosford City and Wyong Shire) as part of Greater Sydney for population counts. This adds another 330,000 people to the metropolitan area covered by Greater Sydney Commission.

Inner suburbs

The CBD extends about south from Sydney Cove. It is bordered by Farm Cove within the Royal Botanic Garden to the east and Darling Harbour to the west. Suburbs surrounding the CBD include Woolloomooloo and Potts Point to the east, Surry Hills and Darlinghurst to the south, Pyrmont and Ultimo to the west, and Millers Point and The Rocks to the north. Most of these suburbs measure less than in area. The Sydney CBD is characterised by considerably narrow streets and thoroughfares, created in its convict beginnings in the 18th century.

Several localities, distinct from suburbs, exist throughout Sydney's inner reaches. Central and Circular Quay are transport hubs with ferry, rail, and bus interchanges. Chinatown, Darling Harbour, and Kings Cross are important locations for culture, tourism, and recreation. The Strand Arcade, which is located between Pitt Street Mall and George Street, is a historical Victorian-style shopping arcade. Opened on 1 April 1892, its shop fronts are an exact replica of the original internal shopping facades. Westfield Sydney, located beneath the Sydney Tower, is the largest shopping centre by area in Sydney.

There is a long trend of gentrification amongst Sydney's inner suburbs. Pyrmont located on the harbour was redeveloped from a centre of shipping and international trade to an area of high density housing, tourist accommodation, and gambling. Originally located well outside of the city, Darlinghurst is the location of the historic, former Darlinghurst Gaol, manufacturing, and mixed housing. It had a period when it was known as an area of prostitution. The terrace style housing has largely been retained and Darlinghurst has undergone significant gentrification since the 1980s.

Green Square is a former industrial area of Waterloo which is undergoing urban renewal worth $8 billion. On the city harbour edge, the historic suburb and wharves of Millers Point are being built up as the new area of Barangaroo. The enforced rehousing of local residents due to the Millers Point/Barangaroo development has caused significant controversy despite the $6 billion worth of economic activity it is expected to generate. The suburb of Paddington is a well known suburb for its streets of restored terrace houses, Victoria Barracks, and shopping including the weekly Oxford Street markets.

Inner West

The Inner West generally includes the Inner West Council, Municipality of Burwood, Municipality of Strathfield, and City of Canada Bay. These span up to about 11 km west of the CBD. Suburbs in the Inner West have historically housed working class industrial workers, but have undergone gentrification over the 20th century. The region now mainly features medium- and high-density housing. Major features in the area include the University of Sydney and the Parramatta River, as well as a large cosmopolitan community and the nightlife hub on King Street in Newtown. The Anzac Bridge spans Johnstons Bay and connects Rozelle to Pyrmont and the city, forming part of the Western Distributor.

The area is serviced by the T1, T2, and T3 railway lines, including the Main Suburban Line; which is the first to be constructed in New South Wales. Strathfield railway station is a secondary railway hub within Sydney, and major station on the Suburban and Northern lines. It was constructed in 1876, and will be a future terminus of Parramatta Light Rail. The area is also serviced by numerous bus routes and cycleways. Other shopping centres in the area include Westfield Burwood and DFO Homebush.

Eastern suburbs

The Eastern Suburbs encompass the Municipality of Woollahra, the City of Randwick, the Waverley Municipal Council, and parts of the Bayside Council. The Greater Sydney Commission envisions a resident population of 1,338,250 people by 2036 in its Eastern City District (including the City and Inner West).

They include some of the most affluent and advantaged areas in the country, with some streets being amongst the most expensive in the world. As at 2014, Wolseley Road, Point Piper, had a top price of $20,900 per square metre, making it the ninth-most expensive street in the world. More than 75% of neighbourhoods in the Electoral District of Wentworth fall under the top decile of SEIFA advantage, making it the least disadvantaged area in the country.

Major landmarks include Bondi Beach, a major tourist site; which was added to the Australian National Heritage List in 2008; and Bondi Junction, featuring a Westfield shopping centre and an estimated office work force of 6,400 by 2035, as well as a railway station on the T4 Eastern Suburbs Line. The suburb of Randwick contains Randwick Racecourse, the Royal Hospital for Women, the Prince of Wales Hospital, Sydney Children's Hospital, and University of New South Wales Kensington Campus. Randwick's 'Collaboration Area' has a baseline estimate of 32,000 jobs by 2036, according to the Greater Sydney Commission.

Construction of the CBD and South East Light Rail was completed in April 2020. Main construction was due to be completed in 2018 but was delayed until 2020. The project aims to provide reliable and high-capacity tram services to residents in the City and South-East.

Major shopping centres in the area include Westfield Bondi Junction and Westfield Eastgardens.

Southern Sydney

Southern Sydney includes the suburbs in the local government areas of former Rockdale, Georges River Council (collectively known as the St George area), and broadly it also includes the suburbs in the local government area of Sutherland, south of the Georges River (colloquially known as 'The Shire').

The Kurnell peninsula, near Botany Bay, is the site of the first landfall on the eastern coastline made by Lt. (later Captain) James Cook in 1770. La Perouse, a historic suburb named after the French navigator Jean-François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse (1741–88), is notable for its old military outpost at Bare Island and the Botany Bay National Park.

The suburb of Cronulla in southern Sydney is close to Royal National Park, Australia's oldest national park. Hurstville, a large suburb with a multitude of commercial buildings and high-rise residential buildings dominating the skyline, has become a CBD for the southern suburbs.

Northern Sydney

' Northern Sydney' may also include the suburbs in the Upper North Shore, Lower North Shore and the Northern Beaches.

The Northern Suburbs include several landmarks – Macquarie University, Gladesville Bridge, Ryde Bridge, Macquarie Centre and Curzon Hall in Marsfield. This area includes suburbs in the local government areas of Hornsby Shire, City of Ryde, the Municipality of Hunter's Hill and parts of the City of Parramatta.

The North Shore, an informal geographic term referring to the northern metropolitan area of Sydney, consists of , , , , Killara, , , and many others.

The Lower North Shore usually refers to the suburbs adjacent to the harbour such as , , Mosman, , Cremorne Point, , Milsons Point, , Northbridge, and North Sydney. and are often also considered as being part of the Lower North Shore. The Lower North Shore's eastern boundary is Middle Harbour, or at the Roseville Bridge at and . The Upper North Shore usually refers to the suburbs between and . It is made up of suburbs located within Ku-ring-gai and Hornsby Shire councils.

The North Shore includes the commercial centres of North Sydney and Chatswood. North Sydney itself consists of a large commercial centre, with its own business centre, which contains the second largest concentration of high-rise buildings in Sydney, after the CBD. North Sydney is dominated by advertising, marketing businesses and associated trades, with many large corporations holding office in the region.

The Northern Beaches area includes Manly, one of Sydney's most popular holiday destinations for much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The region also features Sydney Heads, a series of headlands which form the wide entrance to Sydney Harbour. The Northern Beaches area extends south to the entrance of Port Jackson (Sydney Harbour), west to Middle Harbour and north to the entrance of Broken Bay. The 2011 Australian census found the Northern Beaches to be the most white and mono-ethnic district in Australia, contrasting with its more-diverse neighbours, the North Shore and the Central Coast.

Hills district

The Hills district generally refers to the suburbs in north-western Sydney including the local government areas of The Hills Shire, parts of the City of Parramatta Council and Hornsby Shire. Actual suburbs and localities that are considered to be in the Hills District can be somewhat amorphous and variable. For example, the Hills District Historical Society restricts its definition to the Hills Shire local government area, yet its study area extends from Parramatta to the Hawkesbury. The region is so named for its characteristically comparatively hilly topography as the Cumberland Plain lifts up, joining the Hornsby Plateau.

Several of its suburbs also have "Hill" or "Hills" in their names, such as Baulkham Hills, Castle Hill, Seven Hills, Beaumont Hills, and Winston Hills, among others. Windsor and Old Windsor Roads are historic roads in Australia, as they are the second and third roads, respectively, laid in the colony.

Western suburbs

The greater western suburbs encompasses the areas of Parramatta, the sixth largest business district in Australia, settled the same year as the harbour-side colony, Bankstown, Liverpool, Penrith, and Fairfield. Covering and having an estimated resident population as at 2017 of 2,288,554, western Sydney has the most multicultural suburbs in the country. The population is predominantly of a working class background, with major employment in the heavy industries and vocational trade. Toongabbie is noted for being the third mainland settlement (after Sydney and Parramatta) set up after the British colonisation of Australia began in 1788, although the site of the settlement is actually in the separate suburb of Old Toongabbie.

The western suburb of Prospect, in the City of Blacktown, is home to Raging Waters, a water park operated by Parques Reunidos. Auburn Botanic Gardens, a botanical garden situated in Auburn, attracts thousands of visitors each year, including a significant number from outside Australia. Another prominent park in the west is the Western Sydney Regional Park

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