Sydney

Sydney
/sid"nee/, n.
1. Sir Philip. See Sidney, Sir Philip.
2. a seaport in and the capital of New South Wales, in SE Australia. 2,876,508.
3. a seaport on NE Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, in SE Canada. 30,645.
4. a male or female given name.

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I
City (pop., 2001: 3,997,321), capital of New South Wales, Australia.

Located on Australia's southeastern coast, it is the oldest and largest city in Australia and a major commercial and manufacturing centre. It was founded in 1788 as a penal colony (see Botany Bay) and quickly became a major trading centre. It is built on low hills surrounding one of the world's finest natural harbours, which supports extensive port facilities. It is dominated by Sydney Harbour Bridge, one of the biggest single-span bridges in the world, and the Sydney Opera House. The city is widely known for its water sports, recreational facilities, and cultural life. It is the site of the Universities of Sydney (1850) and New South Wales (1949), and Macquarie University (1964). Sydney was the host of the 2000 Summer Olympic Games.
II
(as used in expressions)
Adams Walter Sydney
William Sydney Porter

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Introduction
 city, capital of the state of New South Wales, Australia. Located on Australia's southeastern coast, Sydney is the country's largest city and, with its magnificent harbour and strategic position, is also one of the most important ports in the South Pacific. In the early 19th century, when it was still a small convict settlement and the first settlers had barely penetrated the interior, it had already established trade with the Pacific Islands, India, China, South Africa, and the Americas.

      The first sight of Sydney, whether from the sea or the air, is always spectacular. Built on low hills surrounding a huge harbour with innumerable bays and inlets, the city is dominated by the bulk of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, one of the longest steel-arch bridges in the world, and the Opera House, with its glittering white shell-shaped roofs that seem to echo the sails of the many yachts in the adjacent harbour. The intricate confusion of water and buildings makes a striking impression either by day or by night.

      Because of its history as a great port and its status as the site of the country's main international air terminal, Sydney is perhaps the only city in Australia with a genuinely international atmosphere. Yet it remains a very Australian city, with a nice compromise between the Anglo-Saxon efficiency of its British heritage and the South Seas attractions of its climate and environment. Area City of Sydney, 2.4 square miles (6.2 square km); Sydney Statistical Division, 4,790 square miles (12,406 square km). Pop. (1996) City of Sydney, 24,883; Sydney Statistical Division, 3,741,290; (2001) City of Sydney, 47,204; Sydney Statistical Division, 3,997,321.

Physical and human geography

The landscape
      Sydney is situated on latitude 34° S and has an average mean temperature ranging from 72 °F (22 °C) in January to 55 °F (13 °C) in July. Its warm, sunny, but temperate climate has encouraged its citizens to develop a pleasure-loving and easygoing attitude to life and to make full use of the opportunities for sailing, swimming, and surfing at their doors. The average annual precipitation (all falling as rain) is 47 inches (1,200 mm), spread relatively evenly throughout the year. The greatest amount falls in late autumn and the least in early spring, with short tropical deluges in summer (December–February). The humid heat of summer, when the prevailing wind is from the northeast, is tempered from time to time by the arrival of a cold front from the Tasman Sea, heralded by a stiff wind from the south known locally as the “Southerly Buster.” Sydney is unbearably hot on only a few days each year when a westerly wind brings the hot, dry air from the inland. In winter (June–August), however, the westerly wind is cool.

The city layout
      The Sydney Statistical Division is spread over a vast area that stretches from the Blue Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east and from the southern shore of Lake Macquarie in the north to south of Botany Bay. Only about one-third of this region is classified as urban, but the great bulk of the region's population lives in the urban area. A pattern of suburban sprawl, caused partly by the cheapness of land in earlier days and by the determination of ordinary Australians to own their own houses and gardens, has caused problems for the authorities responsible for sewerage and transport. The sprawl is also in marked contrast to the comparatively small and compact central business district, which is crammed into a narrow rocky peninsula between two arms of the harbour within the City of Sydney proper.

      The same contrast can be seen in the style of buildings. Whereas most of the houses in the suburbs are one-story bungalows built of brick or wood, numerous buildings in the central business district—where land costs are much higher—are tall multistory structures. The rapid development initiated in the 1960s has transformed the city centre, which now looks like a smaller Manhattan rising from the shores of the harbour, though in fact most of the buildings are not high by North American standards. Soaring above downtown is the AMP Tower (completed 1981; spire added in 1991), which reaches a height of 1,000 feet (305 metres) and contains restaurants and an observation deck. Additional business centres have sprung up in North Sydney, which is linked to the City of Sydney by the Harbour Bridge, and Parramatta, about 15 miles (25 km) west of the city centre.

      The standard of architecture in the city is generally mediocre, though there are a few handsome buildings surviving from the 19th century and a few contemporary buildings of distinction, including the brilliantly designed Opera House. The magnificent Macquarie Street, which leads down from Hyde Park to the Opera House, is lined by all of the important government buildings of the 19th and 20th centuries. Yet the general effect of Sydney is attractive, and the innumerable bays and arms of the harbour, stretching into the land and providing unexpected views from almost every street, make it a most pleasing city.

      The Sydney region is fortunate to be almost completely ringed by dozens of national and regional parks and recreation areas—a unique distinction for so large a city. Sydney Harbour, Garigal, and Lane Cove national parks are in the city itself; Kur-ring-gai Chase National Park is just to the north; and Botany Bay and Royal national parks are just to the south. The mouth of the Hawkesbury River, with its many fingerlike inlets, provides a superb expanse of sheltered water for yachting, while a string of magnificent sandy beaches stretches along the Pacific coast both north and south of the city and is a haven for enthusiasts of aquatic sports.

The people
      Sydney was founded by the British, and the largest proportion of its citizens is still of British stock, if that term is extended to include persons of Irish descent. Since the end of World War II, however, Australia has also taken in large numbers of immigrants from other European countries and, since 1960, a number from Asia, including people of Lebanese, Arabic, Chinese, Turkish, and Vietnamese descent. New Zealand also provides a large number of immigrants. Many of these newcomers have settled in Sydney. Some of the inner suburbs have a distinctly Greek or Italian character, and almost every suburb has its variety of ethnic restaurants. There is also a Chinatown, and one suburb, Redfern, has a small community of Aboriginals living under somewhat depressed conditions.

 The two largest Christian denominations are Anglican and Roman Catholic, each with its cathedral, but Sydney also has Muslim mosques, Jewish synagogues, and Buddhist temples, as well as the churches of many other Christian denominations.

The economy
Industry and services
      About three-fourths of the manufacturing labour force of New South Wales, and about one-fourth of that in Australia, is employed in the Sydney region. Some two-thirds of Sydney's eligible working population is in the work force, and of this a small and diminishing proportion is employed in manufacturing, with the rest in service-related activities. There is no predominant industry in the city itself, though oil refining in the area is important. Sydney has always been essentially a city of government and of local, national, and international commerce, as well as a centre of shopping, culture, and entertainment for the state of New South Wales. In the 1970s Sydney superseded Melbourne as the country's financial centre, and it is now the top choice for international corporate headquarters, especially in activities such as banking, computers, and mining. Sydney's primary wool market is headquartered at the Wool Centre, which opened in 1975.

      Sydney is a centre for international tourists. Hotel and motel 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. It is possible to find restaurants offering almost every kind of international cooking, though Sydney's famous oysters are among the most popular dishes. The Darling Harbour area just west of downtown includes the city's first modern complex for conventions, popular concerts, indoor sports, and political assemblies. The city's first gaming casino opened in 1995.

      Since 1855 Sydney has had a railway linking the city centre to some of its suburbs. Between World Wars I and II, this radial suburban rail system was electrified, and construction of the city's underground railway was begun (the first section was opened in 1926). In 1932, after the completion of the Harbour Bridge, the north shore was linked directly by rail to the city. Both surface and underground railway extensions were completed to the eastern suburbs in 1979.

      In spite of development and the existence of an extensive metropolitan bus service, public transport has failed to keep pace with demand. Since World War II, Sydney, like so many other cities, has fallen victim to the automobile, and the resulting traffic problem has been made worse by the geographic layout of Sydney. A high proportion of those people who work in the central business district make their homes in the outer suburbs and must find their way to and from the city by a limited number of routes. Most of those living on the North Shore, for instance, must cross the harbour by the Harbour Bridge or via an adjacent tunnel, which opened in 1992. There is a second bridge, at Gladesville, which takes some of the traffic, and there are other bridges farther to the west, but it is difficult for north-south traffic to bypass the city. Moreover, traffic congestion is aggravated by the narrowness of the streets. Attempts to relieve congestion by building express highways have been only partially successful, and Sydney, like other cities, has taken measures to ban all traffic from certain sections of the inner city. To this end a pedestrian plaza was created in Martin Place, in the centre of the city, in 1971.

      A delightful alternative means of transport, the public ferry system, exists for those who live on the shores of the harbour. It provides transportation for commuters and visitors alike, and special harbour cruises are available for tourists. Sydney also has a light-rail system and a monorail.

      The main airport, for both 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. A second port has been developed in Botany Bay, 10 miles (16 km) to the south, to handle petroleum products, chemicals, and bulk cargo. Circular Quay, in the heart of the city, is the hub of the harbour ferry system and port for cruise ships, as well as a bus and railway centre. Visitors can stroll from there to the city centre and the Opera House.

Administration
      Sydney is the capital of New South Wales and the seat of its government and parliament. The state government has delegated matters of local interest to more than 40 local government areas in the Sydney region, including the City Council of Sydney, but has retained direct control of some important matters, such as police and transport. In addition, a number of functions normally exercised by local councils have been transferred to boards, commissions, trusts, and departments established by the state government. The most important of these responsibilities concern water, sewerage and storm drainage, electricity, major roads, fruit and vegetable markets, and many aspects of health and welfare. Furthermore, some land remains under federal control. The result is a somewhat confused and complicated system of government. For historical and political reasons, the boundaries of the City of Sydney have been changed several times. It reached its greatest extent in 1949, but its area was reduced in 1968 and again in 1989, so that it is now responsible only for the central business district and the innermost neighbourhoods. The Sydney Statistical Division was created in 1976 to define the area's future urban development. The region was delimited by combining the built-up urban area surrounding the central city with the large nonurban hinterland adjacent to the urban area.

Cultural life
      Sydney is, above all, a city for physical enjoyment. Few great cities in the world offer such unrivaled opportunities for swimming, surfing, sailing, and other outdoor sports. It is still possible to swim from several beaches in the harbour itself—though water pollution remains a concern—and the surf beaches to the north and south of the city are world famous. One of these, Bondi, is a short drive from the city centre. Some of the beaches to the north of the city, especially those on the Palm Beach peninsula and in Manly, are exceedingly beautiful. The surf is good, though variable, and made comparatively safe by voluntary lifesaving clubs, which provide guards and rescue equipment on all beaches throughout the summer months. Sydney is also a city of yachting. On any weekend the harbour is covered with sails of every shape and size, while Pittwater, an inlet 15 miles (25 km) to the north, is almost equally popular. There are also many golf courses and excellent facilities for football sports (including Australian rules football and rugby), cricket, and tennis, and the racecourse at Randwick is first class. Sydney Olympic Park was constructed for the 2000 Summer Olympic Games. The city worked to make the Games as environmentally responsible as possible: the park was built on reclaimed industrial wasteland; buildings were constructed by using recycled materials and were designed to conserve energy and water; and efforts were made to reduce and recycle waste. Facilities include Stadium Australia, with a capacity of 110,000 spectators.

      Situated on the harbour are the Taronga Zoo, a 75-acre (30-hectare) park that opened in 1916 and houses some 2,000 animals, and the Royal Botanic Gardens, founded in 1816 and the country's oldest scientific institution. 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; nearby is the Powerhouse Museum. The Rocks is the oldest part of the city and lies at the foot of the Harbour Bridge at Circular Quay. Its historical flavour has been preserved, and it has become a popular tourist spot; the Museum of Contemporary Art is located there.

      Australians have been accused of being sports mad, and Sydneysiders, as they call themselves, are certainly no less devoted to sport than their compatriots in other cities. Yet Sydney also has a vigorous cultural and intellectual life. There are several universities in the metropolitan area, including the University of Sydney (Sydney, University of) (1850; Australia's first university), the University of New South Wales (1949), Macquarie University (1964), the University of Technology, Sydney (1988), the University of Western Sydney (1989), and Australian Catholic University (1991). Other cultural institutions include the Australian Museum (1827), the country's oldest museum and largest natural history collection, and the Art Gallery of New South Wales (1874), which has a large collection of Aboriginal art.

      There was once a serious shortage of theatres and concert halls in the city, but this was remedied when the Sydney Opera House—in fact a major arts centre—was opened in 1973. This beautiful and costly building was designed by the Danish architect Jørn Utzon (Utzon, Jørn), who won an international competition held for the purpose in 1957. Built on a magnificent site on the harbour, surrounded by water on three sides, it contains a concert hall; a large theatre for opera and ballet; three smaller theatres for plays, dance, lectures, seminars, and music; and a reception hall. The complex also contains several restaurants. The city has its own symphony orchestra, but for opera and ballet Sydney depends chiefly on the Australian national companies, which visit the city for a season each year. The Sydney Dance Company has also won an international reputation. Sydney has several small theatre groups and a motion-picture industry, and a large entertainment centre, seating 5,000, was opened in the Darling Harbour area in 1984 to present concerts of popular music and theatrical productions.

      Thus, though Sydney has become a large city offering services and amenities comparable to those offered by any major city, there is still no doubt that its most lasting impression and greatest attraction is its physical setting. A high proportion of Sydney's residents can glimpse at least a strip of blue water from their windows, and nearly all can live within an hour of a beach.

History

Early settlement
      When the English admiral Arthur Phillip (Phillip, Arthur) arrived off the coast of southeastern Australia with the First Fleet in 1788, he sailed first to Botany Bay, which had been discovered by Captain James Cook (Cook, James) in 1770 and to which he had been directed by the British government. Finding the bay too exposed for safe anchorage and the surrounding country unsuitable for settlement, he looked farther north and soon discovered the entrance to Port Jackson only a few miles away. Phillip's first impressions of Port Jackson, which had been named but not explored by Cook, are recorded in a famous dispatch to Thomas Townshend, 1st Viscount Sydney, then the British home secretary, dated May 15, 1788.

We got into Port Jackson early in the afternoon, and had the satisfaction of finding the finest harbour in the world, in which a thousand sail of the line may ride in the most perfect security.

      Phillip immediately decided to move the whole fleet to Port Jackson and to establish the first settlement on a cove, which had a good freshwater stream and in which his ships could anchor close to the shore in deep water. He called it Sydney Cove, for the home secretary. Present-day Sydney Cove is still the city's heart, though it is now more commonly known as Circular Quay.

      The early history of Sydney was grimly dominated by its existence as a British penal colony. Convicts, dumped on this alien shore, found the environment a harsh one. The soil was poor, and the land was rough and had to be cleared by hand. The little settlement was often short of food until the settlers were able to cross the Blue Mountains and find the richer land to the west of the Great Dividing Range. There were also constant troubles between the governors, the free settlers, and the convicts.

      With the exploration and settlement of New South Wales, Sydney grew quickly; the British government provided free land, free convict labour, free capital works, and guaranteed markets for the produce of the new colony. Trading links with the rest of the world were quickly established. Under the enlightened governorship of Lachlan Macquarie (Macquarie, Lachlan) (1810–21), Sydney developed from a precarious penal settlement into a thriving, respectable town. Macquarie also began a program of public works, including the building of churches, hospitals, barracks, schools, and courthouses, and laid out several parks in and around the city. In this work he was aided by a convict-architect, Francis Greenway, who had been banished for forgery in England. Greenway built several fine buildings in the Georgian style, notably the Hyde Park Barracks and St. James Church (both on Macquarie Street), which have been scrupulously restored to their original state.

Growth of the modern city
      The most astoundingly rapid growth of Sydney—from 60,000 to 400,000 population—took place in the years between 1850 and 1890, as suburbs of tightly packed terrace houses were built. These houses, with their balconies and decorative cast-iron railings, are now Sydney's most attractive heritage from the past. The first railway, from Sydney to Parramatta, began as early as 1855.

      The financial collapse of the 1890s acted as a slight check to Sydney's growth, but population doubled again by 1914 and reached the million mark soon after. Yet during this period Melbourne, the capital of Victoria, was growing still faster, partly as a result of the gold rush in that colony in the 1850s. Temporarily overtaking Sydney in both size and importance, Melbourne became the financial centre of Australia, and it was the capital of the Commonwealth of Australia until the Federal Capital of Canberra was built in 1927 halfway between the two cities. By 1911 Sydney had once again become Australia's largest city, and after World War II it benefited from a shift in Australia's trade toward North America and Asia and away from Britain. Sydney has remained slightly more populous than Melbourne and has equaled or surpassed the other city in importance as a centre of finance, commerce, and manufacturing. In its growth it has not escaped the ills that have afflicted so many other large cities of the world, 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.

John Douglas Pringle Ed.

Additional Reading
General orientations are offered by Michael Poulsen and Peter Spearritt, Sydney: A Social and Political Atlas (1981); and Shirley Fitzgerald, Sydney: A Story of a City (1999). The best sources for facts and figures about Sydney are New South Wales State Planning Authority, Sydney Region: Outline Plan, 1970–2000 A.D. (1968); Sydney City Planning Department, 1980 City of Sydney Strategic Plan (1980); New South Wales Department of Planning, Sydney's Future: A Discussion Paper on Planning the Greater Metropolitan Region (1993); and City of Sydney Special Projects, Sydney 1999 (2000). A charming portrait of contemporary Sydney, unencumbered by statistics, is Gavin Souter and Quinton Davis, Sydney (1965), with photographs by Davis. The early history of the convict settlement is graphically told from contemporary documents in James Johnston Auchmuty (ed.), The Voyage of Governor Phillip to Botany Bay (1970); and the multivolume series by John Cobley, Sydney Cove (1962– ). All early histories of Australia necessarily deal with Sydney in part. More recent histories of the city include Geoffrey Moorehouse, Sydney: The Story of a City (1999); Peter Spearritt, Sydney's Century: A History (2000); and Paul Ashton, The Accidental City: Planning Sydney since 1788 (1993), which chronicles the growth of the city. M.H. Ellis, Lachlan Macquarie: His Life, Adventures, and Times, 5th ed. (1978), and Francis Greenway: His Life and Times, 2nd ed., rev. (1953, reprinted 1966), are good biographies. Ed.

      former city, ocean port, and since 1995 a constituent component of Cape Breton regional municipality, northeastern Nova Scotia, Canada. It lies on the southeastern arm of Sydney Harbour at the mouth of the Sydney River, on eastern Cape Breton Island.

      Founded in 1785 as a haven for loyalists and named for Thomas Townshend, Baron Sydney (later Viscount Sydney; then colonial secretary), it served as the capital of Cape Breton Island until 1820, when the island was united with Nova Scotia. The population increased considerably during the early 19th century with the influx of large numbers of immigrants, especially from the Highlands of Scotland, and again in the early 20th century after a major steel plant was opened there. It was incorporated as a town in 1886 and as a city in 1904.

      Sydney is situated on an excellent harbour in the heart of an extensive coal-mining region, and the regional municipality (which also includes nearby North Sydney, Sydney Mines, and Glace Bay) forms Nova Scotia's second largest industrial complex (after Halifax). There are also aluminum, automobile-assembly, concrete, and woodworking plants, fishing (including lobster) industries, and a ship-repairing drydock. The Sydney area is the eastern terminus of the mainland portions of the Trans-Canada Highway and the Canadian National Railway (Canadian National Railway Company); there also are ferry connections to Newfoundland. Sydney is the seat of St. Francis Xavier Junior College (1952); the Canadian Coast Guard College (1965) is at nearby Point Edward. Pop. (2006) Cape Breton regional municipality, 102,250.

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Universalium. 2010.

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