With an approximate population of 4.5 million inhabitants, Sydney is the largest and the oldest city in Australia. The first settlers arrived in 1788. Situated on Sydney Harbour and next to Circular Quay, The Rocks is the starting point of European settlement in Australia.
A coastal town located on the east bank of the mouth of the Tamar River, George Town is Australia's third oldest European settlement and Australia's oldest town.
The first settlement, at Sydney, consisted of about 850 convicts and their Marine guards and officers, led by Governor Arthur Phillip. They arrived at Botany Bay in the "First Fleet" of 9 transport ships accompanied by 2 small warships, in January, 1788.
A city in Australia little known because of its island location, Hobart is the second oldest city in Australia after Sydney. It is also the capital of the island of Tasmania, located south of Melbourne a few hours by ferry.
Sydney is the oldest and largest Australian city.
In recent years, science has confirmed what Aboriginal Australians, the world's oldest continuous living culture, always knew: the Pilbara region of Western Australia is among the oldest places on Earth.
Hunters Hill is recognised as Australia's oldest garden suburb, of which Figtree Park in particular is an important historic component.
The town is an ex-Hydro village and now a residence for Inland Fisheries Services (IFS) and a Tasmania Police station. It is known for its exceptional fishing at nearby Great Lake and hosts several trout fishing events. Liawenee is the coldest permanently-inhabited place in Australia.
Small Towns in Australia
The smallest town in Australia is the quirky Cooladdi (Aboriginal meaning “Black Duck”), which is placed between Quilpie and Charleville in southwest Queensland. Coolidge is actually a ghost town and, even though it once had a population of 270, now it's home to only four people.
Jericho, Palestine
A small city with a population of 20,000 people, Jericho, which is located in Palestine, is believed to be the oldest city in the world. Indeed, some of the earliest archeological evidence from the area dates back 11,000 years.
Built in 1788, First Government House was the first major building to be constructed on the Australian mainland. The remains of the building's original foundations in Sydney CBD, provide rare evidence of the earliest years of British settlement in Australia andcontain the only tangible relics of 1788 still in place.
While Indigenous Australians have inhabited the continent for tens of thousands of years, and traded with nearby islanders, the first documented landing on Australia by a European was in 1606. The Dutch explorer Willem Janszoon landed on the western side of Cape York Peninsula and charted about 300 km of coastline.
The islands were settled by different seafaring Melanesian cultures such as the Torres Strait Islanders over 2500 years ago, and cultural interactions continued via this route with the Aboriginal people of northeast Australia.
Indigenous Australia culture is tens of thousands of years older than many other ancient civilisations that are revered around the world, such as Mesopotamia (dating back as early as 3500 B.C.), Egypt (3100 B.C.), Greece (2700 B.C.), Maya (2600 B.C.) and China (1600 B.C.).
In 1927, the national capital was finally ready and the national government relocated from its former seat in Melbourne to Canberra within the Australian Capital Territory (or the Federal Capital Territory as it was known at the time).
Earth's oldest known piece of continental crust dates to the era of the moon's formation. Australia holds the oldest continental crust on Earth, researchers have confirmed, hills some 4.4 billion years old.
With 126,900 millionaires, Sydney made it to number 10 with the report noting especially strong growth in wealth in the Harbour City over the past 20 years, making it Australia's wealthiest city. It's also predicted to reach the top 5 wealthiest cities in the world by 2040.
Australia is colloquially known as "the Land Down Under" (or just "Down Under"), which derives from the country's position in the Southern Hemisphere, at the antipodes of the United Kingdom.
Mamungkukumpurangkuntjunya. Mamungkukumpurangkuntjunya Hill is officially the longest place name in Australia. Located in the Indigenous Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara lands in the north of the state of South Australia, the name is derived from 'where the devil urinates' in regional Pitjantjatjara language.
Oodnadatta, South Australia
Of course we Aussies don't have to travel far to feel the heat, especially during the Australian summer months. The record for the highest official temperature ever recorded in Australia belongs to the remote outback town of Oodnadatta in South Australia.
Orange, New South Wales.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders: Australia's First Peoples.
The column graph shows that a higher proportion of older Australians live in Inner regional and Outer regional areas in comparison to the total population (66% of older Australians live in Major cities, 23% in Inner regional areas, 9.7% in Outer regional areas and 1.5% in Remote and very remote areas).
Australia's oldest continuous family business is Summerville farm in Tasmania, 26km north of Hobart on the Jordan River.