AUSTRALIA - Cities

Sydney

 Sydney is located in the southeast of Australia, in New South Wales, on of the southern states, on the shores of the Tasman Sea. With, in 2013, a population of 4,757,083 inhabitants on nearly 12,300 km², Sydney is the most populous city in Australia. Its inhabitants are called Sydneysiders, or Sydneyites.

Aboriginal settlement existed on the site for several millennia. Aborigines are the original inhabitants of Australia and produce particularly varied rock art, but they were decimated by the colonists and the diseases they brought to the island.

Sydney was founded in 1788.
It is James Cook who saw for the first time the site of the current Sydney. He named it Port Jackson in 1770 in honor of Sir George Jackson, one of the Commissioners of the British Admiralty Lords. In 1788, Captain Arthur Philip gave the place its current name (in honor of the British Home Minister Thomas Townshend, first Viscount of Sydney) that he had chosen to lead the prisoners and establish a penal colony for the convicts (prisoners) brought from Britain. Free settlers followed them and, from 1800 to 1850 their number increased steadily since they were attracted by the richness of New South Wales (gold rush).

The most visited site in Sydney is the Sydney Opera House with five rooms including a large concert hall. The Opera House was built in 1957, its construction lasted 16 years and it was inaugurated in 1973 by Queen Elizabeth II. It is also the 3^rd most active company in the world, the monument is classified world heritage by the UNESCO.

Sydney has a subtropical climate, so it gets pleasant temperatures. There are many beaches located to the east of the city.

A high concentration of skyscrapers and other buildings (including historical buildings such as the Town Hall or the Queen Victoria Building) are interspersed with parks such as Wynyard Park and Hyde Park. Sydney is bounded on the east by a series of parks and public gardens that stretch from Hyde Park to Farm Cove at the edge of the bay, through the Royal Botanic Gardens. The western side is itself bounded by Darling Harbour, a popular tourist destination and mecca for nightlife while Central Station marks the southern limit of the city center. George Street serves as a main north-south lane of communication in the business district.

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