SYDNEY, a city situated in the Sydney Basin (County Cum berland) is the capital of New South Wales, Australia, and lies (lat. 33° 52" S., i5I° 12' E.) mainly on the south shore of Port Jackson somewhat south of the central east of the State. The oval-shaped area which extends from about Broken Bay (Hawkes bury River estuary) on the north to a little beyond Port Hacking on the south, and from the coast east of Sydney c. 4o miles inland (near Glenbrook) forms the lower part of a geological and tectonic basin which is disposed fairly symmetrically about the line Botany Bay–Penrith.
The Sydney Basin is enclosed on three sides by flattish high lands which are, moreover, deeply dissected and seamed with gorges by streams which now, for the most part, form part of the Hawkesbury system but which formerly had different (west ward and north-westward) courses and were dislocated by the late (Tertiary?) uplift which raised the plateaux. On the seaward side, also, recent earth-movements have resulted in the drowning of river valleys and created spacious inlets--Port Hacking, Bot any Bay, Port Jackson, Broken Bay—but here also the basin edge structure is apparent in the upstanding cliffs which form an outer rampart along the coast and give rise, at the entrance of Port Jackson, to the famous Sydney Heads, great sandstone cliffs which admit between them a deep (8o ft. low-water) sea passage of a minimum breadth of a mile.
The Sydney Basin is one of the largest coastal lowlands of the State, but its lack of easy land communications makes the presence and growth of Sydney seem somewhat surprising. The reasons are partly physical but more historical: the superiority of the deep and sheltered harbour, defensible yet easily accessible from the sea, gave it an advantage over the shallower and more open Botany Bay and the semi-silted ,Port Hacking, and when Governor Phillip, in 1788, removed the early settlement from Botany Bay, he chose the small deep-water cove at the head of which now stands Circular Quay, but where was then a fresh running stream (Tank Stream) now obliterated.
Port Jackson, sheltered from the southerly gales, covers an area of 22 sq.miles and has a highly embayed coastline—a succession of romantic low bluffs and coves, still often densely wooded, giving a total shore-line of nearly 190 miles. It opens a way into the heart of the lowlands and upon its southern and lower shores (elevation zoo ft.) the original settlement grew. For some time it was, from the point of view of its founders, not only "the State," but "all Australia," and from it emanated, and upon it centred, much of the energy and initiative which built up the growing colony. Hence its triumph over physical obstacles, for
the roads and the railways have had to cross the highlands at one of their most difficult sections, and, outside the basin, and apart from a few special areas—e.g., mining centres, and also the tourist resorts (Katoomba, etc.) attracted by elevation and scenery— the barren and rugged highlands at a distance of 5o miles are still almost unoccupied. The city expanded rapidly (pop. 1861: 97,061; 1901: 1921: 906,103) until in 1933 the total metropolitan area contained 1,235,367 inhabitants, or 47-5% of the population of New South Wales. The metropolitan area in cludes the city proper (Sydney in 1933 with ; North Sydney 49,749) and a group of suburbs organized into a total of 48 additional municipalities. Altogether in 1933 it covers an area of 244 sq. miles and has a density of 5,062.98 per sq. mile. But this concentration of a large portion of the citizens of a vast State into what is virtually the Sydney Basin is characteristic. The re markable growth of large industrial cities, which in so many coun tries has drained the countryside during the last half century, has characterized Australian growth from almost the beginning and without the typical agrarian preliminary stage.
However, as the city grows, industrial and commercial occupa tion advances and the residential areas are pushed farther out. Thus the higher and less accessible northern shores of the har bour have developed mainly as residential areas (e.g., Ryde, pop. 27,86o). Industries are expanding along the southern shore—Red fern (18,837), Paddington (24,693), Balmain (28,268)—and westwards—Granville (19,717), Parramatta (18,075 ) , Lidcombe (17,378)—so that residential areas are now developing far afield. Along the south-east coast is Randwich (78,962) and in the Bot any Bay (q.v.) area are Bexley (20,539), Kogarth is (30,648), Hurstville (22,667) and Canterbury (79,058). The climate s gen erally healthy and invigorating, cool and bracing with westerly winds in winter (May to September inclusive), hot and sometimes unpleasantly humid in summer. The prevailing winds from Octo ber–April (inclusive) are from the north-east. Mean temps. range from 70.1° F in summer to 56.2° F in winter, with extremes 108.5° F and 35.9° F. Sydney is a city of sunshine: 2,168 hr. per annum.