The Land and Climate

The metropolitan area of Sydney stretches along the coast of the Tasman Sea for 40 miles (65 kilometers) and sprawls inland across the clayey shales and dissected sandstones of the uneven Cumberland Plain for 30 miles (49 kilometers) to the Blue Mountains, a canyon-carved plateau rising to 3,424 feet (1,044 meters). Sydney wraps itself around four branching inlets of the Tasman Sea—Broken Bay in the north, into which the Hawkesbury River brings fresh water; busy Port Jackson at the center; Botany Bay, an industrial port beside the Kingsford-Smith International Airport; and Port Hacking in the south, wedged between beachside suburbs and the Royal National Park. Buildings spread over 4,790 square miles (12,406 square kilometers), but the residential density is only 670 persons per square mile (259 per square kilometer).

North and south of Sydney along the narrow coastal plain, strings of beach resorts alternate with pockets of dairying—all carved from the dense eucalyptus (gumtree) forests. The neighboring provincial cities of Newcastle and Wollongong are centers for steel production, shipbuilding, and coal mining. They merge with Sydney to form a coastal megalopolis 140 miles (225 kilometers) long. Inland from Sydney the mazelike Blue Mountains defied exploration for 25 years after Phillip's First Fleet arrived. The crossing of the mountains in 1813 opened the western plains of New South Wales to farmers and graziers (ranchers) and jammed Sydney Harbour with tall-masted wool and grain clippers. (See also New South Wales.)

Sydney receives an average annual rainfall of 48 inches (122 centimeters)—more than any other Australian capital city—though its inland edges receive only 28 inches (71 centimeters). To offset periodic droughts, 10 reservoirs now capture runoff for 140 miles (225 kilometers) to the south.

Summer temperatures in Sydney in January reach an average mean temperature of 71.6°  F (22°  C), whereas in July, the winter's average mean is 53.6°  F (12°  C). Prevailing oceanic winds bring moist relief from the heat in a city that has nearly 2,480 hours of sunshine annually. However, occasional “southerly busters” bring winter greetings from the Antarctic. Scorching, dusty westerlies fan the summer bushfires.

Inner City

Downtown Sydney is confined to an irregular promontory that juts from the south shore of Port Jackson. Tiny Sydney Cove (Circular Quay to most Sydney-siders) remains the focus for ocean liners, commuter ferries, and the financial district. Above the cove rears the huge arch of the Harbour Bridge (the so-called “coat hanger”), opened in 1932 and still the main traffic link between the northern and southern shores. Opposite, on Bennelong Point, is the white-shelled Sydney Opera House (built in 1957–73). Behind the Quay state office buildings of carved golden sandstone—squat remnants of the 19th century—are intermixed with shopping arcades and department stores.

As the mother city of Australia and the capital of the state of New South Wales, Sydney treasures its colonial Georgian Parliament House (the Rum Hospital of 1810–16) and battlemented Government House (home of the governor). Monuments in Macquarie Place include the anchor of HMS Sirius (Phillip's man-o'-war) and the obelisk (1818) from which all road distances into the interior are measured. At Kurnell, the entrance to Botany Bay, another obelisk marks the place where Cook first stepped ashore in Australia. Heritage buildings by Francis Greenway, a convict and architect, include Hyde Park Barracks (1817) and the Anglican Church of St. James (1820–24). Public ceremonies are observed at the Town Hall (1866–89), the Cenotaph in Martin Place, and the Anzac Memorial (1932) in Hyde Park. Old Sydney is preserved in the Rocks, a revitalized area adjoining Sydney Cove and such terraced inner suburbs as Paddington (“Paddo”) and Woolloomooloo (“The 'loo”).

For 1.25 miles (2 kilometers) along its eastern edge, downtown Sydney follows a wedge of parkland from Farm Cove, where Australia's first crops were sown in 1788, through the Royal Botanic Gardens (1816) and the Domain, where soapbox orators entertain Sunday idlers, to Hyde Park. Amid these playing fields and harborside promenades stand the Library of New South Wales (built in 1906–64), the Art Gallery (1909), St. Mary's Roman Catholic Cathedral (begun in 1865), and the Australian Museum (1861–66), which has an incomparable collection of aboriginal artifacts. The University of Sydney, Australia's first, was founded in 1850, but suburban campuses were designed for the University of New South Wales in 1949 and for Macquarie University in 1964.

Harbor and Workplace

Port Jackson serves as a mercantile port, mainly west of the Harbour Bridge, as well as a recreational waterway. Container terminals, roll-on/roll-off berths, coal loaders, power stations, railroad yards, oil storage tanks, slaughterhouses, fish markets, brickworks, cargo sheds, and naval dockyards line the waterfront. Petrochemical industries relocated to Botany Bay beginning in 1969, giving Sydney a second freight-handling port and revitalizing Australia's oldest factory zone, where woollen mills and tanneries date from 1815. The waterfront was further enhanced when obsolete military installations on the cliffed headlands became the panoramic Sydney Harbour National Park after 1978.

Tucked between other headlands are the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron, sailing and swimming clubs, marinas, boat houses, saltwater baths cut into the surf-swept rocks, a naval training base, and more than 40 pocket beaches—many protected by sharkproof nets. Taronga Park Zoo offers some of the finest harbor vistas. Sydney's Darling Harbour area, formerly a port facility, underwent redevelopment in the 1980s and '90s and has become one of the city's premier entertainment districts, with shops, restaurants, and plazas. It includes the Sydney Aquarium and the Australian National Maritime Museum.

The most opulent houses in Sydney overlook Port Jackson from its southern shores at Point Piper, Darling Point, and Vaucluse, where old, established families and exclusive schools have congregated. Islands in Sydney Harbour include Fort Denison (formerly Pinchgut, with the only martello tower, or round blockhouse, in Australia), and the infamous Cockatoo and Goat islands, where twice-convicted felons (“hard cases”) were sent to quarry sandstone.

In the second half of the 20th century, Sydney moved from a manufacturing-based economy to one that is overwhelmingly dominated by the finance and service sectors, including information technology, telecommunications, and retail. Sydney essentially is a city of government and of local, national, and international commerce, as well as a center of shopping, culture, and entertainment for the state of New South Wales. As the country's financial center, Sydney handles nearly four fifths of the country's banking. It also remains the top choice for national and international corporate headquarters in Australia.

Sydney is a center for international tourists, with approximately four million visitors annually. Hotel accommodations and restaurants are found throughout the city, though they are especially numerous in central Sydney and the Kings Cross area to the east of the central business district. Popular destinations include the Sydney Opera House, the Pitt Street Mall, the Customs House, and the Darling Harbour area, which includes the city's first modern complex for conventions, popular concerts, and indoor sports. The city's first gaming casino opened in 1995.

Transportation and Recreation

Mass-transit lines reach virtually every corner of Sydney. Outer suburbs rely mainly on private buses, while government buses, ferries, and hydrofoils serve the inner suburbs. Like most major metropolitan areas, Sydney is plagued with traffic congestion. This has been only somewhat alleviated by the construction of express highways and public transportation systems, including a light-rail system and a monorail. The main airport, both for international and internal traffic, is on the northern shores of Botany Bay, to the south of the city. Port Jackson (Sydney Harbour) is one of the major ports in Australia.

Few cities in the world offer such unrivaled opportunities for swimming, surfing, sailing, and other outdoor sports as does Sydney. It is still possible to swim from several beaches in the harbor itself—though water pollution remains a concern—and the surf beaches to the north and south of the city are world famous. Along the Sydney coast Pacific breakers have pounded the cliffed headlands into 35 crescentic sandy beaches. The first Surf Life Saving Club was formed at Bondi in 1906. Surf carnivals, or rescue contests, began at Manly in 1908. On summer weekends many thousands of surfers flock to such beaches as Bondi, Curl Curl, Deewhy, Narrabeen, Maroubra, Coogee, and Cronulla.

Sport is a social occasion in Sydney. Every suburb has its lawn-bowling club. Every district supports its own football and cricket teams with palatial clubhouses. Legalized gambling is offered in Sydney's 500 sporting clubs and clubs for returned servicemen. Famous arenas include the Sydney Cricket Ground, the lawn tennis courts at White City, Randwick Racecourse, and the Royal Agricultural Society's Show Ground, the venue of the annual Easter Show. Every December 26 since 1945, an armada of yachts has churned down the harbor in the race to Hobart, 680 miles (1,094 kilometers) away.

History

Sydney began inauspiciously as a jail at the farthest end of the Earth, receiving British convicts until 1840. Incorporated as a city in 1842, it became the state capital after constitutional parliamentary government was achieved in 1856. The so-called “mother colony” of New South Wales originally covered all of eastern Australia until Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) became an independent colony in 1825, New Zealand in 1841, Victoria in 1851, and Queensland in 1859. Sydney's sphere of influence shrank. In 1861 gold-booming Melbourne surpassed it in population. Sydney recaptured its premier status among Australian cities only after 1901.

After World War II urban planners failed to restrain Sydney's suburban sprawl inside a zoned green belt but found ways to repair the fragmentation caused by the branching waterways. The city's remoteness from Europe was reduced by three events: the Suez Canal opened in 1869; an undersea telegraph cable was laid in 1872; and Qantas scheduled flights to London in 1934. Metropolitan Sydney's population exceeded 1 million by 1930 and 2 million by 1960.

The Granny Smith apple originated in Sydney in about 1860, and the world's first milk bar opened there in 1930. The French designer Pierre Cardin called Sydney the “most beautiful city in the world: you are the sea; you are the country; you are the sun.”

The city benefited from a shift in Australia's trade toward North America and Asia and away from Britain after World War II. Sydney has remained slightly more populous than Melbourne and has equaled or surpassed the other city in importance as a center of finance, commerce, and manufacturing. Like so many other large international cities, it has not escaped the downsides of urban life, including environmental pollution, traffic congestion, and crime. Nevertheless, Sydney has become the most international and most sophisticated of Australian cities. The most striking example of this was its role as host of the 2000 Summer Olympics. Population (2001 estimate), metropolitan area, 3,997,321.