Sydney is the most populous city in Australia with a metropolitan area population of over 4.2 million people.  Sydney is the state capital of New South Wales and is located on the country’s south-east coast.  Sydney is in a coastal basin bordered by the Pacific Ocean to the east, the Blue Mountains to the west, the Hawkesbury River to the north and the Woronora Plateau to the south. Sydney lies on a submergent coastline, where the ocean level has risen to flood deep river valleys (rias) carved in the sandstone. One of these drowned valleys, Port Jackson, better known as Sydney Harbour, is the largest natural harbor in the world.

In some ways, though, the city delights in its “bad-boy” heritage. Though the region was populated for 100,000 years by the Aborigines, Captain Arthur Phillips sailed his First Fleet into Sydney Cove in 1788, bearing nearly 1,000 exiled convicts from British prisons. Settled as a colony of the crown and named “New South Wales,” the country grew as more exiled convicts joined free settlers in forming the basis for the community that would become a major financial and cultural center of the Asia-Pacific region.

Today, Sydney abounds with modern interpretations of its colonial past. At waterfront Circular Quay, where Phillips first landed, street entertainers ply their trade along Writer’s Walk, where famous writers’ words about Australia are fixed in the sidewalk with gold medallions.  Host to the 2000 Summer Olympic Games, the city has renovated much of its infrastructure.

The extensive area covered by urban Sydney is formally divided into more than 300 suburbs (for addressing and postal purposes), and administered as 38 local government areas. There is no city-wide government, but the Government of New South Wales and its agencies have extensive responsibilities in providing metropolitan services.[16] The City of Sydney itself covers a fairly small area comprising the central business district and its neighboring inner-city suburbs. In addition, regional descriptions are used informally to conveniently describe larger sections of the urban area.

Sydney’s central business district (CBD) extends southwards for about 2 kilometers (1.25 mi) from Sydney Cove, the point of the first European settlement. Densely concentrated skyscrapers and other buildings including historic sandstone buildings such as the Sydney Town Hall and Queen Victoria Building are interspersed by several parks such as Wynyard and Hyde Park. The Sydney CBD is bounded on the east side by a chain of parkland that extends from Hyde Park through the Domain and Royal Botanic Gardens to Farm Cove on the harbor. The west side is bounded by Darling Harbour, a popular tourist and nightlife precinct while Central station marks the southern end of the CBD. George Street serves as the Sydney CBD’s main north-south thoroughfare.

Sydney is particularly noted for its low population density. The reasons for Sydney’s low-density development are rooted in its history. Surrounded by land that was considered unowned by the city’s founders, early Sydney enjoyed relatively low land values, allowing more residents to acquire larger plots on which to live. This was reinforced by Sydney’s development as a predominantly middle class, commercial city, in which even the working classes enjoyed higher wages and living standards than their counterparts in Europe.

Finally, Sydney acquired its public transport system early on in its life. Working-class suburbs could thus be built far from the city centre, whereas in older cities, the need to maintain walking distance between residential and employment centers kept sprawl to a minimum.

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