Sydney is the state capital of New South Wales and the most populous city in Australia. It is on Australia's south-east coast, on the Tasman Sea. In June 2010 the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.76 million people.Inhabitants of Sydney are called Sydneysiders, comprising a cosmopolitan and international population.
The site of the first British colony in Australia, Sydney was established in 1788 at Sydney Cove by Captain Arthur Phillip, of the First Fleet, as a penal colony.The city is built on hills surrounding one of the world's largest natural harbours, Port Jackson, which is commonly known as Sydney Harbour, where the iconic Sydney Opera House and the Harbour Bridge are prominent structures. The hinterland of the metropolitan area is surrounded by national parks, and the coastal regions feature many bays, rivers, inlets and beaches, including the famous Bondi and Manly beaches. Within the city are many parklands, including Hyde Park and the Royal Botanic Gardens.
Sydney has hosted multiple major international sporting events, including the 1938 British Empire Games (now known as the Commonwealth Games), the 2000 Summer Olympics and the final of the 2003 Rugby World Cup. The main airport serving Sydney is Sydney (Kingsford Smith) Airport and its main port is Port Botany.
History
Radio carbon dating suggests that the Sydney region has been inhabited by indigenous Australians for at least 30,000 years.The historic indigenous inhabitants of Sydney Cove are the Cadigal people, whose land once stretched from south of Port Jackson to Petersham. While estimates of the population before the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788 remain contentious, an estimated 4,000–8,000 Aboriginal people lived in the Sydney region before contact with British settlers. The British called the indigenous people the "Eora";when asked where they came from these people would answer: Eora, meaning "here", or "from this place" in their language.
The three language groups in the Sydney region were divided into dialects, spoken by smaller clans. The principal languages were Darug (the Cadigal, inhabitants of the area of present-day City of Sydney, spoke a coastal dialect of Darug), Dharawal and Guringai. Each clan had a territory, and the location of each territory determined the resources available. Although urbanisation has destroyed much earlier evidence of these settlements, such as shell middens, a number of Sydney rock engravings, carvings and rock artremain visible in the Hawkesbury sandstone of the Sydney basin.
In 1770, Lieutenant James Cook landed at Botany Bay on the Kurnell Peninsula.Here Cook made first contact with an Aboriginal community known as the Gweagal. Under instruction from the British government, Arthur Phillip founded a convict settlement in the area, arriving at Botany Bay with a fleet of 11 ships on 18 January 1788. Closer examination determined the site to be unsuitable for habitation, owing to poor soil and a lack of reliable fresh water. Phillip subsequently founded the colony one inlet further north along the coast, at Sydney Cove on Port Jackson on 26 January 1788. The official proclamation of the founding and naming of Sydney took place nearly two weeks later on 7 February 1788. The original name was intended to be Albion, but Phillip named the settlement after the British Home Secretary, Thomas Townshend, Lord Sydney, in recognition of Lord Sydney's role in issuing the charter authorising Phillip to establish the colony.
In April 1789, a catastrophic epidemic struck the Eora people and surrounding groups, who had no immunity, with the result that local Aborigines died by the thousands. Their bodies could often be seen bobbing in the water in Sydney Harbour. By the early 1800s, the Aboriginal population of the Sydney basin "had been reduced to only 10 percent of the 1788 estimate"[citation needed] or an estimated 500 to 1000 Aboriginal people between Broken Bay and Botany Bay.
Some indigenous people mounted violent resistance to British settlement, notably by the warrior Pemulwuy in the area around Botany Bay. Conflicts were common in the area surrounding the Hawkesbury River. By 1820 only a few hundred Aborigines survived. Governor Lachlan Macquarie had begun initiatives to 'civilise, Christianise and educate' the Aborigines by removing children from their clans and placing them with British households.[13] Macquarie's tenure as Governor of New South Wales was a period when Sydney was improved from its basic beginnings. Roads, bridges, wharves and public buildings were constructed by British and Irish convicts. By 1822 the town had banks, markets, well-established thoroughfares and an organised constabulary.
The 1830s and 1840s were periods of urban development, which included the first suburbs. The town grew rapidly with the arrival of British and Irish immigrants seeking a new life in a new country. On 20 July 1842 the municipal council of Sydney was incorporated. The town was designated as the first city in Australia, with John Hosking elected as its first mayor. Rapid suburban development began in the last quarter of the 19th century with the advent of steam-powered tramways and railways easing commutes to work. With industrialisation, Sydney expanded rapidly and, by the early 20th century, it had a population of more than a million. In 1929, the novelist Arthur Henry Adams called it the "Siren City of the South" and the "Athens of Australia".
The Great Depression hit Sydney hard in comparison to other Australian cities. One of the highlights of the Depression era, however, was the completion of the Sydney Harbour Bridge in 1932.
There has been a rivalry between Sydney and Melbourne since the gold rushes of the 1850s made the latter, capital of Victoria, Australia's largest and richest city.Sydney overtook Melbourne in population in the early years of the 20th century, and continues to be the largest city in Australia. During the 1970s and 1980s, Sydney's central business district (CBD), with a great number of financial institutions including the headquarters of the Reserve Bank, surpassed Melbourne as the nation's financial capital.
Geography
Sydney's urban area is in a coastal basin, which is bordered by the Tasman Sea to the east, the Blue Mountains to the west, theHawkesbury River to the north and the Royal National Park to the south. It lies on a submergent coastline, where the ocean level has risen to flood deep river valleys (ria) carved in the Hawkesbury sandstone. Port Jackson, better known as Sydney Harbour, is one such ria.
The urban area has nearly 70 harbour and ocean beaches, including the famous Bondi Beach. Sydney's urban area covers 1,687 km2(651 sq mi) as of 2001. The Sydney Statistical Division, used for census data, is the unofficial metropolitan area and covers 12,145 km2 (4,689 sq mi). This area includes the Central Coast, the Blue Mountains, and national parks and other unurbanised land.
Geographically, Sydney lies over two regions: the Cumberland Plain, a relatively flat region lying to the south and west of the harbour, and the Hornsby Plateau, a sandstone plateau lying mainly to the north of the harbour and dissected by steep valleys. The parts of the city with the oldest European development are located in the flat areas south of the harbour. The North Shore was slower to develop because of its hilly topography and lack of access across the harbour. The Sydney Harbour Bridge was opened in 1932 and linked the North Shore to the rest of the city.
Geology
Sydney is mostly Triassic rock, with some recent igneous dykes and volcanic necks. The Hawkesbury sandstone is some 200 m (656 ft) thick, with shale lenses and fossil riverbeds dotted throughout it. Almost all of the rocks exposed around Sydney are sandstone. The sand that was to become this sandstone was washed from Broken Hill and laid down in the Triassic period, about two hundred million years ago, a time when plants were ferns, reptiles were becoming dinosaurs, and mammals did not yet exist. The Sydney Basin sits on the east coast of Australia, which is made up of a basin filled with near horizontal sandstones and shales of Permian to Triassic age that overlie older basement rocks of the Lachlan Fold Belt. The sedimentary rocks have been subject to uplift with gentle folding and minor faulting during the formation of the Great Dividing Range. Erosion by coastal streams has created a landscape of deep gorges and remnant plateaus. The Sydney Basin bioregion includes coastal landscapes of cliffs, beaches and estuaries.
Climate
Sydney has a temperate climate with warm summers and cool winters, with rainfall spread throughout the year.The weather is moderated by proximity to the ocean, and more extreme temperatures are recorded in the inland western suburbs. The warmest months are January and February, with an average air temperature range at Observatory Hill of 18.7–25.9 °C (65.7–78.6 °F) for January and 18.8–25.8 °C (65.8–78.4 °F) for February. An average of 14.9 days a year have temperatures of more than 30 °C (86 °F).
In winter, temperatures rarely drop below 5 °C (41 °F) in coastal areas. The coldest month is July, with an average range of 8.0–16.3 °C (46.4–61.3 °F).Rainfall is fairly evenly spread through the year, but is slightly higher during the first half of the year. The average annual rainfall, with moderate to low variability, is 1,213.8 mm (47.79 in), with rain falling on an average of 143.5 days a year.Snowfall was last reported in the Sydney City area in 1836, while a fall of graupel, or soft hail, mistaken by many for snow, in July 2008, has raised the possibility that the 1836 event was not snow, either. Extreme temperatures have ranged from 45.8 °C (114.4 °F) on 18 January 2013 to 2.1 °C (35.8 °F) on 22 June 1932, the lowest recorded minimum at Observatory Hill. At the Sydney Airport station, extremes have ranged from 46.4 to −0.1 °C (115.5 to 31.8 °F).
The city is not affected by cyclones, although remnants of ex-cyclones do affect the city. The El Niño–Southern Oscillation plays an important role in determining Sydney's weather patterns: drought and bushfire on the one hand, and storms and flooding on the other, associated with the opposite phases of the oscillation. Many areas of the city bordering bushland have experienced bushfires, these tend to occur during the spring and summer. The city is also prone to severe hail storms and wind storms. One such storm was the1999 hailstorm, which severely damaged Sydney's eastern and city suburbs. The storm produced massive hailstones of at least 9 cm (3.5 in) in diameter and resulting in insurance losses of around A$1.7 billion in less than five hours.
The Bureau of Meteorology has reported that 2002 through 2005 were the warmest summers in Sydney since records began in 1859. The summer of 2007–2008, however, proved to be one of the coolest summers on record. Warmer and drier conditions came back in 2009 and 2010, when above-average temperatures were recorded. In 2009, the dry conditions brought a severe dust storm towards eastern Australia. In 2011, above-average rainfall was recorded.
On 18 January 2013, Sydney experienced record-breaking temperatures with 45.8 °C (114 °F) recorded at Observatory Hill. The highest minimum temperature recorded at Observatory Hill is 27.6 °C (82 °F), in February 2011 while the lowest maximum temperature is 7.7 °C (46 °F), recorded in July 1868.
The average annual temperature of the sea is above 20 °C (68 °F), and the monthly average ranges from 18 °C (64 °F) in July to 23 °C (73 °F) in January.
Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney