Sydney (Australia)

I

Introduction

Sydney (Australia), first permanent European settlement in Australia and today the country’s largest metropolitan area, with about 4 million residents. Sydney is the seat of state government as the capital of New South Wales (NSW), Australia’s most populous and economically important state. The city is a dynamic cultural center with a diversified economy focused on service industries, tourism, manufacturing, and international commerce. Its port is one of the leading centers of intercontinental trade in the Asia-Pacific region. Sydney is located on Australia’s southeastern coast at Port Jackson, a large, sheltered, deep-water inlet of the Tasman Sea (part of the South Pacific Ocean).

Sydney was founded as a British penal colony on January 26, 1788. The British government sent ships of convicts from overcrowded British jails to Sydney until the mid-1800s. Today, the stunning natural harbor forms the centerpiece of a modern, cosmopolitan city. Sydney’s diverse population, a result of immigration from many other countries, is reflected in the city’s vibrant cultural life. Sydney is the top Australian destination for tourists from abroad, and tourism is a leading industry in the city. Sydney hosted the 2000 Summer Olympic Games, which boosted its image worldwide as the gateway to Australia.

Sydney has a temperate humid climate with four distinct seasons. Because Australia is in the Southern Hemisphere, its seasons are the opposite of those in the Northern Hemisphere. During the peak of summer in January, the city has an average daily high temperature of 26°C (79°F) and an average low of 19°C (66°F). In July, the coldest month of the year, the average daily high temperature is 16°C (61°F), and the average low is 8°C (46°F). High and low temperatures are slightly more extreme in the inland suburbs, which are farther from the moderating influence of Port Jackson. The average annual precipitation of 1,222 mm (48 in) is spread fairly evenly throughout the year, with a slightly drier period in spring. Rainfall is variable in both amount and timing, however, and severe thunderstorms with hail and torrential rain occur a few times each year. Snow is extremely rare, but frosts are common in the inland suburbs during colder months.

II

Sydney and Its Metropolitan Area

Sydney is bordered on the east by the Tasman Sea and encircled on its other sides by a nearly continuous band of bushland (areas of native vegetation). The Nepean-Hawkesbury river system flows around Sydney’s outer edges, emptying into the sea north of Sydney. The Blue Mountains rise to the west. Sydney is surrounded by rugged terrain known as sandstone country, where massive sedimentary rocks underlie thin soils and hardy forests of bushland. National parks and smaller reserves protect most of the area’s remaining bushland, some of which is subtropical rain forest. This preservation creates a scenic greenbelt around Sydney.

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The administrative area of Sydney proper covers a relatively small area of 6.2 sq km (2.4 sq mi) that includes mainly the central business district (CBD). The Sydney metropolitan area covers an area of 1,580 sq km (610 sq mi), forming a rough semicircle that includes numerous suburban areas. It extends 25 km (16 mi) north to beyond Hornsby, 50 km (31 mi) west to Penrith, and 42 km (26 mi) southwest to Campbelltown.

The CBD and inner suburbs are centered on Sydney Harbour. This harbor joins with Middle Harbour and North Harbour (also known as Manly Cove) to form Port Jackson, which extends inland from the Tasman Sea to as far as Cockatoo Island. To the west of the island, the waterway becomes narrower and is known as the Parramatta River. The narrow coastal entrance to Port Jackson, just 2 km (1 mi) wide, is between two headlands, North Head and South Head. To the south of Port Jackson are two smaller ocean inlets, Botany Bay and Port Hacking.

Sydney’s scenic coastal location adds to the city’s allure. Jutting sandstone cliffs alternate with intimate, sheltered bays along the Sydney Harbour foreshore. Dozens of magnificent, expansive ocean beaches dot the coastline. Rugged sandstone country is found to the north of Port Jackson, to the south around Port Hacking, and to the west in the Blue Mountains. Relatively large unspoiled areas with native plants such as eucalyptus, acacia, banksia, and grevillea remain in the sandstone country. Most of Sydney’s western suburbs are located on the generally flatter and lower terrain of the Cumberland Plain.

The CBD is located south of Sydney Cove, where the boat docks of Circular Quay line the shore. West of Sydney Cove is the well-preserved historic district of The Rocks, which retains a sense of 19th-century Sydney. Also to the west of Sydney Cove, Sydney Harbour Bridge spans Port Jackson, linking the CBD and North Sydney. Completed in 1932, Sydney Harbour Bridge was for many years the longest single-span arched bridge in the world. East of Sydney Cove and overlooking Sydney Harbour stands the Sydney Opera House, designed by Danish architect Jørn Utzon and opened in 1973. One of the world’s most recognizable landmarks with its arched-roof contours, the Sydney Opera House is a large complex of theaters and halls for the performing arts. These sites around Sydney Cove make up the city’s major tourist area.

East of the CBD, the Royal Botanic Gardens (established in 1816) is a living museum of native and nonnative plant species. An adjacent park to the south called the Domain provides a public gathering place and outdoor concert venue. The smaller Hyde Park within the CBD completes this inner-city greenway. To the west of the CBD, the former industrial wharf sites and railroad yards of Darling Harbour were transformed for Australia’s 1988 bicentennial (200th anniversary) in the largest urban redevelopment project ever undertaken in the country. Darling Harbour is now a complex of popular attractions that includes the National Maritime Museum; the Harbourside Festival Marketplace; Sydney Aquarium, featuring transparent underwater viewing tunnels; the Convention and Exhibition Centre; the Entertainment Centre, with a state-of-the-art cinema; and the Chinese Gardens (also called the Garden of Friendship because the design was a gift from Sydney’s Chinese sister city of Guangdong).

The CBD is the site of Sydney’s most important historic buildings, many of which are well-preserved examples of the ornate architectural styles of Sydney’s 19th-century building boom. George Street includes the Victorian architecture of the Sydney Town Hall (1869) and Queen Victoria Building (1898). On nearby streets are St. Andrew’s Cathedral (1868), the Strand Arcade (1892), and the State Theatre (1929). On the eastern edge of the CBD is the Macquarie Street precinct, where a Victorian-style sandstone building complex was originally completed in 1816 to house Sydney Hospital (originally Rum Hospital). This complex now houses the hospital in its reconstructed (1894) central part, while the original north and south wings contain Parliament House (the seat of state government since the 1820s) and the Sydney Mint Museum (founded as Sydney Mint in 1854; opened as a museum in 1982). Hyde Park Barracks (1819) and St. James’s Church (1822) are also located in this precinct. Modern buildings in the CBD include Sydney Tower (1981), the city’s tallest structure at a height of 305 m (1,000 ft), with a narrow base ascending to a multilevel turret that has revolving restaurants and an observation deck.

The CBD is the most important commercial and employment center in Sydney. The major transportation routes—especially for public transit services—focus above all on the CBD, helping it retain a greater role than the centers of many other Australian cities. Major suburban centers for shopping and employment include North Sydney-St. Leonards and Chatswood to the north of Port Jackson; Castle Hill to the northwest; Strathfield, Parramatta, and Blacktown to the west; Fairfield and Liverpool to the southwest; Hurstville and Bankstown to the south; and Bondi Junction-Edgecliff to the east. Industrial zones are spread across many suburbs, notably those that extend south of the CBD to Botany Bay and several areas to the west and southwest of the CBD. Newer high-tech industrial areas include Macquarie Park to the northwest and Frenchs Forest to the north.

Sydney’s residential areas beyond the inner suburbs are mostly low-density suburbs, reflecting the “Australian dream” of owning a freestanding house on a small block of land. Other housing includes one- or two-story terraced houses, which are adjoined in a row, in inner suburbs such as Paddington and Surry Hills; walk-up apartment blocks in the eastern suburbs and around railway stations elsewhere; and homes on large lots in the outer suburbs, especially those to the northwest. For public housing, the state government built a number of high-rise apartment blocks in run-down inner suburbs after World War II (1939-1945). These housing projects were soon deemed unsuccessful and were discontinued because they fostered crime and other social problems. More recently, public housing has taken the form of separate or semidetached homes or two-story terraced townhouses that allow for higher densities but avoid the problems that accompany high-rise blocks. The availability of housing has generally kept pace with demand, mostly through the outward expansion of the metropolitan area. More housing has been created recently in inner areas, including the CBD, on redeveloped industrial sites and in converted commercial buildings.

Several outlying areas are part of the greater Sydney conurbation (a large urban area formed by urban sprawl). To the west are areas of commercial strip development extending from Penrith through the Blue Mountains; to the north are the Central Coast area centered on the city of Gosford and, farther north, the Lake Macquarie-Newcastle urban area; and to the south is the Illawarra region centered on the city of Wollongong. These outlying areas are functionally linked to Sydney. Large numbers of workers commute to Sydney from these areas, traveling 100 km (60 mi) or farther by road or rail.

III

Population

The Sydney metropolitan area has a population of 4.27 million (2003) residents, who call themselves Sydneysiders. Sydney’s population grew steadily after the city was founded in 1788. Sydney had about 50,000 residents by the late 1840s; 100,000 by the mid-1860s; 500,000 around the turn of the century; 1 million by the early 1920s; 2 million by the late 1950s; and 3 million by about 1990. Sydney’s population density is among the lowest of any major world city, in part because suburban expansion began in earnest in the late 19th century after mechanized transportation became available.

Until around 1850, the population of Sydney increased by about 10 percent annually, peaking at about 3,000 additional residents per year from 1841 to 1846. The growth rate was more varied in the second half of the 19th century. The city had periods of slower growth in the 1850s, when population was lost or diverted to the Australian gold fields, and in the 1890s, when a combination of drought and economic recession prevailed.

Economic and political factors continued to affect growth rates during the 20th century. Higher growth occurred in the prosperous decade of 1911 to 1921, followed by much lower growth during the Great Depression years of the late 1920s and early 1930s and again after World War II. Soon after the war, however, Australia introduced an aggressive campaign to attract migrant workers from other countries to assist economic growth and development. This brought a period of higher population growth. In the second half of the 20th century, declining birth rates and a net loss of native residents to other parts of the country meant Sydney’s growth depended increasingly on immigration from other countries and movement from rural areas to the city. Ups and downs in growth rates since the 1970s thus largely reflect variations in immigration rates.

The importance of immigration in Sydney’s growth is reflected in the city’s many ethnic groups. Immigration before World War II was mostly from the United Kingdom and Ireland. Immediately after the war, it was from the United Kingdom and northwestern Europe, followed by a wave of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe. Most recently, immigrants from the Middle East and Asia, including refugees from the war-torn countries of Vietnam and Lebanon, have settled in Sydney.

New ethnic groups have tended to settle in a single area for mutual support before integrating themselves more with the general community. Sydney thus has definite Vietnamese, Italian, South African, Indian, Korean, and Chinese districts, among others. None, however, has ever been an ethnic ghetto. Few obvious racial or ethnic tensions exist between groups. Schools have become more ethnically and culturally diverse, and the addition of new cuisines and cultural activities has added a richness to life in Sydney.

Patterns of religious worship have generally changed along with immigration patterns, as different religious groups become part of the society. Until World War II, the Anglican Church of Australia (known as the Church of England until 1981) had the largest number of members, reflecting the city’s predominantly Anglo-Saxon population. After the war, Catholicism became more prevalent than other Christian denominations in Sydney. The postwar decades saw increasing representation of non-Christian faiths, especially Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Sikhism.

The population of Sydney also includes about 44,000 Aboriginal Australians, the indigenous people of Australia. Many of Sydney’s Aboriginal people live in the Redfern neighborhood in the heart of the city, with a second historically important concentration at La Perouse. Their standard of living is generally lower, and their unemployment rate higher, than that of other Sydney residents. To help combat these inequities, the Aboriginal people have formed a number of self-help organizations.

IV

Education and Culture

Sydney is home to numerous institutions of higher education, including five major universities: Macquarie University (founded in 1964), University of New South Wales (1948), University of Sydney (1850), University of Western Sydney (1989), and the University of Technology, Sydney (1965 as NSW Institute of Technology, then given university status in 1988).

Cultural institutions in Sydney include several of the country’s most important museums. The Art Gallery of New South Wales, established in 1874, houses some of the finest works of art in Australia, including Asian, European, and Australian collections. It also includes the Yiribana Gallery, which houses the world’s largest exhibit of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art and culture. The Australian Museum, founded in 1827 and the country’s first museum, contains natural history and anthropology exhibits. The Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences (1880) comprises the Powerhouse Museum, which includes science and technology exhibits, and the Sydney Observatory astronomical museum. The turbulent history of Sydney from 1788 to 1850, including the effects of European colonization on the local Aboriginal population, is the subject of multimedia exhibits at the Museum of Sydney (1995). The State Library of New South Wales has a collection of 4 million items, including the nation’s most important collection of Australian archival material in the Mitchell Library (1906).

The Sydney Opera House is the centerpiece of the city’s venues for live performances of ballet, opera, and classical music. The Australian Opera, Australian Ballet, and Sydney Dance companies regularly stage performances there. Moreover, the venue often hosts internationally touring performances. Sydney also has many venues for musical theater, drama, and popular music. The Sydney Theatre Company is one of many successful theater companies in the city. Sydney is also home to the internationally acclaimed Australian Chamber Orchestra and Sydney Symphony Orchestra.

The cultural life of Sydney is vibrant and varied, reflecting the multicultural nature of the city. Many festivals, parades, and outdoor concerts enliven the city streets in the summer months. Annual events include the Sydney Festival in January and February, the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras in March, the Royal Easter Show in April, and the Sydney Film Festival in June. Sydney has also become world renowned for its street parties and fireworks on New Year’s Eve and on Australia Day, celebrated on Sydney’s founding date, January 26.

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