Photos of Sydney - Australia’s First City, Australia

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Sydney - Australia’s First City

Australia’s first and largest city started life in 1788 when Arthur Phillip, having orders to found a penal settlement in New South Wales, then a virtually unknown territory, decided to camp in Sydney Cove on the shores of Port Jackson, a magnificent natural harbour. It was teeming with fish, waterfowl and native game and inhabited by the Eora Aboriginal people. Relations between the colonists and the Aborigines seem to have been generally relatively amicable at first. But the indigenous people gradually succumbed to disease, imported by the Europeans, social dislocation, and eventually conflict with the newcomers. Some Europeans took Aboriginal women, and their descendants still live around the city, notably in Redfern and around Botany Bay, the area Phillip surveyed first but turned down in favour of Sydney Cove.

Sydney from Australia Square
 
Port Jackson from Australia Square
 
Sydney Harbour
 
Lower Fort Street, Sydney Harbour Bridge
 
Sydney Harbour Bridge
 
From Sydney Harbour Bridge
 
Sydney Harbour
 
Sydney Harbour, Circular Quay
 
Cahill Express Way
 
George Street, The Rocks
 
View from The Rocks
 
Sydney Opera House
 
Sydney Opera House, CBD
 
Sydney Opera House
 
Circular Quay
 
Sydney Harbour
 
View to Circular Quay
 
Sydney Opera House
 
Sydney Harbour Bridge
 
Sydney Harbour Bridge, North Sydney
 
View over Farm Cove
 
View to Sydney CBD
 
Royal Botanic Garden
 
Government House
 
Hyde Park, Sydney
 
Sydney from the Royal Botanic Garden
 
Motor Way, Sydney CBD
 
St Mary's Cathedral
 
St Mary's Cathedral stained glass window
 
Frazer Memorial Fountain, Sydney Tower
 
Sydney Tower
 
Sydney Town Hall
 
View to Department of Lands building
 
Department of Lands building façade
 
Anchor and cannon of the “Sirius”
 
Planet Hollywood
 
In King Street
 
Oxford Street in Sydney
 
Chinatown gate
 
Food stalls, Chinatown
 
Food stalls, Chinatown
 
Chinatown gate
 
In Paddy's market
 
Tumbalong Park
 
Darling Harbour
 
Along Darling Harbour
 
View of Barangaroo
 
From Barangaroo to Sydney Harbour Bridge
 
View to Sydney from Redfern
 
South Sydney Women's Centre, Redfern
 
Phillip Street, Redfern
 
Terrace housing, Redfern
 
Quiet street in Redfern
 
Street in Redfern
 
Boomerangs, La Perouse
 
Serbian Orthodox Church, Cabramatta
 
Shops in Cabramatta
 
Bondi Beach
 
Road in Parramatta
 
View to Sydney
 

The city of Sydney gradually grew around the harbour, although farming started further west in Parramatta, which for a time became the seat of Government. To the southwest, Campbelltown was founded by Governor Macquarie in 1820, and by this time, Sydney was well established, with fine public buildings designed by Francis Greenway, a convict architect.

Today Sydney is a vast city, the capital of the State of New South Wales, sprawling for 50 kilometres along the coast and 30 kilometres inland, with a population of over 5 million. But its main attractions are within easy reach in the centre: the magnificent harbour with its world-famous icons: the Harbour Bridge (nicknamed the “Coathanger”), and the striking Opera House. Ferries connect to the northern suburbs, and an efficient public transport system links the Central Business District with the outer suburbs.