Sydney, New South Wales & the ACT

The Sydney basin is the country of the Eora peoples, among them the Gadigal of the harbour's southern shore, while the Wiradjuri of the inland plains are the largest Aboriginal group in the state. At Lake Mungo in the far west, human remains buried about 40,000 years ago are among the oldest found in Australia, part of the Willandra Lakes World Heritage Area.

The First Fleet anchored at Sydney Cove in January 1788 under Arthur Phillip, founding a penal colony that spread along the Hawkesbury and Parramatta rivers. Smallpox devastated the Eora in 1789, and violent resistance, led in its early years by the Bidjigal warrior Pemulwuy, met punitive expeditions. As settlers crossed the Blue Mountains in 1813 and pushed inland, massacres followed; after Myall Creek in 1838, seven colonists were hanged, a rare prosecution. The officers of the New South Wales Corps deposed Governor William Bligh in the Rum Rebellion of 1808, and transportation to the mainland colony ended in 1840.

Gold, found near Orange in 1851, drew waves of migrants. After federation in 1901 the new nation needed a capital that was neither Sydney nor Melbourne, and a site on Ngunnawal and Ngambri country was chosen; Canberra was named in 1913 and Parliament moved there in 1927. Aboriginal activism grew here too: the Day of Mourning in Sydney in 1938, the Freedom Ride through country towns in 1965 and the Tent Embassy in Canberra in 1972. The Snowy Mountains Scheme of 1949–1974 drew workers from dozens of countries, and Sydney hosted the Olympic Games in 2000.

Sydney thinks of itself as Australia's global city, and its rivalry with Melbourne — over coffee, weather, sport and which is the real capital of culture — is a national pastime. Life in the city leans towards the water: harbour swims, ocean pools cut into the rock at Bondi and Coogee, surf life-saving clubs and ferries used as commuter transport.

Rugby league is the main winter code in New South Wales, and the annual State of Origin series against Queensland, with New South Wales playing as the Blues, is the fiercest contest in the state's sporting year. Sydney's Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, which began as a protest march in 1978, is now one of its largest events; Vivid Sydney lights up buildings each winter; and the Sydney to Hobart yacht race leaves the harbour on Boxing Day.

Western Sydney holds some of the country's largest Lebanese, Vietnamese, Chinese, Indian and Pacific Islander communities, while country New South Wales keeps its own rituals: the Tamworth Country Music Festival every January, the Parkes Elvis Festival and agricultural shows across the tablelands. Canberra, a planned public-service city, is known for its national institutions and the Floriade spring flower festival.

New South Wales has about 8.6 million people, roughly two-thirds of them in Greater Sydney, a metropolis of about 5.5 million spread from the coast to the foot of the Blue Mountains. Newcastle and Wollongong, once steel and coal cities, are the next largest centres; Canberra has about 470,000 people and a notably highly educated workforce dominated by the federal public service.

Sydney's economy rests on finance, professional services, education, tourism and the port; the Hunter still exports large amounts of coal through Newcastle, one of the largest coal ports in the world. Inland, wheat, wool, beef, cotton and irrigated rice from the Riverina sustain country towns, while the far west is sheep country and mining land around Broken Hill.

The dominant issue is housing: Sydney's prices are among the highest in the world relative to income, long commutes are common and many younger residents are moving to the Central Coast, the Hunter or other states. The 2019–20 bushfires and the 2022 floods at Lismore in the Northern Rivers left lasting damage and have made climate adaptation a daily concern for regional communities.

Sydney's food scene is built on immigration. Cabramatta is known for Vietnamese pho and banh mi, Lakemba and Parramatta for Lebanese charcoal chicken and manoush flatbread, Haymarket for Chinese and Thai cooking, and Leichhardt for its Italian heritage. The Sydney Fish Market is among the largest in the southern hemisphere.

The signature local product is the Sydney rock oyster, a smaller, creamier native oyster farmed in the estuaries of the coast from the Hawkesbury to the far South Coast. Balmain bugs, a flat slipper lobster, and eastern king prawns are other seafood staples. The Northern Rivers around Byron Bay grow macadamias, a nut native to this corner of Australia, along with avocados and coffee, while Orange and Batlow are known for apples.

Wine is made across the state. The Hunter Valley is famed for semillon, a dry white that ages for years in the bottle, and for earthy shiraz; Mudgee and Orange produce cooler-climate wines; and Griffith in the Riverina, where Italian migrants settled from the early 20th century, is one of the country's largest wine-producing areas. Around Canberra, the Canberra District wineries near Murrumbateman specialise in shiraz and riesling.

Sydney centres on its harbour: the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge, the Rocks and Circular Quay, the Royal Botanic Garden, and ferries to Manly and Taronga Zoo. The coastal walk from Bondi to Coogee passes ocean pools and sandstone cliffs, and Royal National Park, established in 1879, lies on the southern edge of the city. To the west, the Blue Mountains rise to Katoomba, where the Three Sisters overlook the Jamison Valley; the Jenolan Caves lie beyond. North of Sydney, the Hunter Valley's wineries cluster around Pokolbin.

The north coast runs through Port Macquarie and Coffs Harbour to Byron Bay, with its surf beaches and the walking track to the lighthouse on Cape Byron. The South Coast runs past the blowhole at Kiama to the white sand of Hyams Beach on Jervis Bay and on to Eden, a former whaling town where whales are now watched on their spring migration.

Canberra's sights include Parliament House, the Australian War Memorial, the National Gallery of Australia and the National Museum around Lake Burley Griffin, laid out to the design of Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin. To the south, the Snowy Mountains hold Mount Kosciuszko, at 2,228 metres the highest peak in mainland Australia, and the resorts of Thredbo and Perisher. Further afield lie Lord Howe Island, a World Heritage island in the Tasman Sea, and the outback town of Broken Hill and Mungo National Park in the far west.