Sydney

Sydney is the state capital of New South Wales and the most populous city in Australia and Oceania.

Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Port Jackson and extends about 70 km (43.5 mi) on its periphery 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, 40 local government areas and 15 contiguous regions. Residents of the city are known as "Sydneysiders".

HISTORY

During his first Pacific voyage in 1770, Lieutenant James Cook and his crew became the first Europeans to chart the eastern coast of Australia, making landfall at Botany Bay and inspiring British interest in the area. In 1788, the First Fleet of convicts, led by Arthur Phillip, founded Sydney as a British penal colony, the first European settlement in Australia. Phillip named the settlement after Thomas Townshend, 1st Viscount Sydney.

Sydney is among the top fifteen most-visited cities in the world, with millions of tourists coming each year to see the city's landmarks. Boasting over 1,000,000 ha (2,500,000 acres) of nature reserves and parks, its notable natural features include Sydney Harbour, the Royal National Park, Royal Botanic Garden and Hyde Park, the oldest parkland in the country.

Built attractions such as the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the World Heritage-listed Sydney Opera House are also well known to international visitors.

The main passenger airport serving the metropolitan area is Kingsford-Smith Airport, one of the world's oldest continually operating airports. Established in 1906, Central station, the largest and busiest railway station in the state, is the main hub of the city's rail network.

GEOGRAPHY

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 measures 25 square kilometres (10 square miles), the Greater Sydney region covers 12,367 square kilometres (4,775 square miles), and the city's urban area is 1,687 square kilometres (651 square miles) in size.

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 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.

TOURISM

Sydney is a gateway to Australia for many international visitors. It has hosted over 2.8 million international visitors in 2013, or nearly half of all international visits to Australia. The countries of origin in descending order were China, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, the United States, South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Germany, Hong Kong, and India.

Popular destinations include the Sydney Opera House, the Sydney Harbour Bridge, Watsons Bay, The Rocks, Sydney Tower, Darling Harbour, the State Library of New South Wales, the Royal Botanic Garden, the Royal National Park, the Australian Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the Queen Victoria Building, Sea Life Sydney Aquarium, Taronga Zoo, Bondi Beach, the Blue Mountains, and Sydney Olympic Park.

Major developmental projects designed to increase Sydney's tourism sector include a casino and hotel at Barangaroo and the redevelopment of East Darling Harbour, which involves a new exhibition and convention centre, now Australia's largest.

PARKS & RECREATION

The Royal Botanic Garden is the most important green space in the Sydney region, hosting both scientific and leisure activities. There are 15 separate parks under the administration of the City of Sydney. Parks within the city centre include Hyde Park, The Domain and Prince Alfred Park.

The outer suburbs include Centennial Park and Moore Park in the east, Sydney Park and Royal National Park in the south, Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park in the north, and Western Sydney Parklands in the west, which is one of the largest urban parks in the world. The Royal National Park was proclaimed on 26 April 1879 and with 13,200 hectares (51 square miles) is the second oldest national park in the world.

The largest park in the Sydney metropolitan area is Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park, established in 1894 with an area of 15,400 hectares (59 square miles). It is regarded for its well-preserved records of indigenous habitation and more than 800 rock engravings, cave drawings and middens have been located in the park.

The area now known as The Domain was set aside by Governor Arthur Phillip in 1788 as his private reserve. Under the orders of Macquarie the land to the immediate north of The Domain became the Royal Botanic Garden in 1816. This makes them the oldest botanic garden in Australia. The two parks have a total area of 64 hectares (0.2 square miles) with 8,900 individual plant species and receive over 3.5 million annual visits.

To the south of The Domain is Hyde Park, the oldest public parkland in Australia which measures 16.2 hectares (0.1 square miles) in area. Macquarie dedicated it in 1810 for the "recreation and amusement of the inhabitants of the town" and named it in honour of the original Hyde Park in London.

MUSEUMS

Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park is rich in Indigenous Australian heritage, containing around 1,500 pieces of Aboriginal rock art – the largest cluster of Indigenous sites in Australia, surpassing Kakadu, which has around 5,000 sites but over a much greater land mass. The park's indigenous sites include petroglyphs, art sites, burial sites, caves, marriage areas, birthing areas, midden sites, and tool manufacturing locations, among others, which are dated to be around 5,000 years old.

The Australian Museum opened in Sydney in 1827 with the purpose of collecting and displaying the natural wealth of the colony. It remains Australia's oldest natural history museum. In 1995 the Museum of Sydney opened on the site of the first Government House. It recounts the story of the city's development.

Other museums based in Sydney include the Powerhouse Museum and the Australian National Maritime Museum.

The Museum of Contemporary Art was opened in 1991 and occupies an Art Deco building in Circular Quay. Its collection was founded in the 1940s by artist and art collector John Power and has been maintained by the University of Sydney.

Sydney's other significant art institution is the Art Gallery of New South Wales which coordinates the coveted Archibald Prize for portraiture. Contemporary art galleries are found in Waterloo, Surry Hills, Darlinghurst, Paddington, Chippendale, Newtown, and Woollahra.

ROADS & HIGHWAYS

The most important roads in Sydney were the nine Metroads, including the 110-kilometre (68-mile) Sydney Orbital Network.

BUSES

Bus services today are conducted by a mixture of Government and private operators. In areas previously serviced by trams the government State Transit Authority operates, in other areas, there are private (albeit part funded by the state government) operators. Integrated tickets called Opal cards operate on both government and private bus routes.

State Transit alone operated a fleet of 2,169 buses and serviced over 160 million passengers during 2014. NightRide is a nightly bus service that operate between midnight and 5am, also replacing trains for most of this period.

RAILWAYS

Rail services are operated by Sydney Trains and Sydney Metro. Sydney Trains serves 175 stations across greater Sydney and had an annual ridership of 359 million passenger journeys in 2017–18.

Sydney Metro, an automated rapid transit system separate from the suburban commuter network, commenced operation in 2019, with plans in place to extend the system through the CBD by 2024.

FERRIES

From its hub at Circular Quay the ferry network extends from Manly to Parramatta.

SEAPORTS

Cruise ship terminals are located at Sydney Cove and White Bay.

AIRPORTS

Sydney Airport, officially "Sydney Kingsford-Smith Airport", is located in the inner southern suburb of Mascot with two of the runways going into Botany Bay. It services 46 international and 23 domestic destinations. As the busiest airport in Australia it handled 37.9 million passengers in 2013.

Bankstown Airport is Sydney's second busiest airport, and serves general aviation, charter and some scheduled cargo flights. Bankstown is also the fourth busiest airport in Australia by number of aircraft movements.