Sydney Harbour and the Opera House.
"I think I'd give a kingdom for a glimpse of Sydney-side."
—Henry Lawson.
Sydney, the largest city in
Australia and
Oceania, is Australia's financial hub. It is the capital of the state of New South Wales, but
not the capital of Australia (that role is fulfilled by Canberra). Its most famous landmarks are the Sydney Opera House and the Harbour Bridge;
the former, in particular, is required by law to be shown in any fictional depiction of the city.
Considered to be among the most beautiful cities in the world thanks to said landmarks (and many more besides), its diverse environment (beaches, parks, forests...) and temperate climate,
note oh yes, tell that to us who live in the Greater West...! it makes for a
very popular tourist destination - indeed, tourism forms a large part of the city's economy. It has Australia's most famous beach (Bondi Beach) and a very active nightclub scene.
Amongst Sydneysiders is one of the biggest overseas-born populations of any city in the world. Consequently, the city is wildly multicultural both as a matter of official policy, and in day-to-day life. It has the largest Asian, Middle-Eastern, and North and South American communities in Australia,
note although Australia's Americas communities are tiny compared to the former two as well as significant Pacific Islander, African, and
Aboriginal Australian communities, and a European-heritage majority. It is home to Oceania's biggest Chinatown. While the overwhelming majority of Sydneysiders speak Australian English, the city is home to languages from all over the world, chiefly Arabic (4.1%), Mandarin (3%), and Cantonese (3%). Sydney is the most ethnically diverse city in Australia.
Perhaps Sydney's most spectacular display of entertainment is the annual New Year's Eve celebrations - one of the earliest celebrated due to time zone differences - where no less than 1
million people, native and tourist alike, will pack themselves into the harbourside, the CBD (Central Business District) and its surrounding areas.
note If you're hoping to find a good spot, arrive very early, or preferably a few days before that; they fill up very quickly. Leaving the city after these celebrations becomes nigh-impossible due to immense traffic build up. To make matters worse, the Harbour Bridge has only one lane leading out of the CBD. Another much-loved attraction is the Easter Show.
An establishing shot of Sydney (especially the Opera House) is a quick and easy way for a movie to show that its threat is worldwide: see, for instance,
Independence Day's flying-saucer-over-the-Harbour shot. It's also popular for
Nations Of The World Montages.
Sydney has several major sub-regions:
- The CBD and Eastern Sydney. The Sydney CBD is one of the biggest in the Southern Hemisphere, and contains Asian regional offices for many big multi-national companies as well as a majority of Australian ones. Sydney Harbour and Bondi Beach are considered part of this region. Also the center of the hipster and artistic side of the city, as well as one of the larger Aboriginal populations in Redfern. The Inner West has become part of this region as the city expanded, it contains 'old growth' multicultural areas from the post-war immigration era, with areas commonly associated with Italians, Greeks and other Southern European nations. It's also home to the largest Chinatown in Australia.
- North Shore and the Northern Beaches are considered the upper class area of the city. Contains old homes, rich people, and a private school or three in each suburb. It has a genteel culture and a generous abundance of trees, parks and strips of natural bush. It is split from the Inner City and CBD by Sydney Harbour. The North Shore is home to the City of Ryde, one of the most multicultural areas in Australia (although still not as diverse as certain spots to the west, like Parramatta). The North's growing Asian community also includes "Little Korea" at its edge in Eastwood, while walking through other parts of the region are rather like walking through a city in China.
- The North West, also know as the Hills District is where you find nouveau riche upper-middle class families, almost all of which live in giant Mc Mansions and send their kids to fancy private schools in what could be termed the Australian version of the American Dream. Is is considered the centre of the religious movement in Australia, with the 'Hillsong' Church being equivalent to Christian fundamentalist movements in the United States. Has an odd relationship with the rest of the city as it is trapped between demographics, with people further East associating the North West with the middle and lower classes in the West and South West, while the people in those areas associate the North West with the upper class North Shore and CBD areas. It further isolates itself from the rest of the city because of it's preferences for both Rugby Union and a much higher level of interest in Australian Rules Football.
- Sutherland (and St George) is where the real surfer culture in Sydney is. It is directly south of the CBD and on the coast. Bondi Beach is for tourists, while Sutherland contains all the best surfing beaches in the city, like Cronulla Beach. It has a large white majority and reflects the demographics of Australia as a whole much more than the rest of the city does. This has caused tension with the West, as the more multicultural areas will head to Sutherland for the weekend, leading to anger at being 'invaded'. This tension eventually blew up in what was termed the "Cronulla Race Riot". It includes Botany Bay which is not part of Sydney Harbour.
- The West of Sydney has started to be termed 'Greater Western Sydney', but this area is so large and massive that it makes more sense to discuss more specifically the sub-regions.
- South Western Sydney, centered around the 'second CBD' of Parramatta was filled with immigration waves from the 1970's onward. This contained Vietnamese fleeing from the Vietnam War, Lebanese, Iranian and Iraqi refugees, ex-Yugoslavian immigrants and from the mid 2000's, African refugees many of which come from Sudan. It is one of the most multi-cultural regions on the planet and has been said to contain people from more countries than actually exist right now. Apart from Parramatta, there is relatively little high rise buildings and contains wide areas of urban sprawl. Unlike the rest of the city, people from the South West will prefer The Beautiful Game over Rugby League, and half of all players from the Australian National team hail from the South West area.
- Blacktown and Penrith were once considered Satellite Cities but population spread and development has pushed Blacktown into Sydney as a whole, with Penrith expected to become so in the next 15 to 20 years. Penrith is the furthest part of Sydney to still be considered 'Sydney', with the rise of the "Greater Western Sydney" name. Penrith roughly matches Sutherland in it's white-majority demographics except for being nowhere near a beach. Blacktown and Penrith contain most of the lower-middle class 'bogan' population of the city.
- Campbelltown is the last major sub-region, being further South West than the rest of the city, it is still something of a Satellite City. Mostly unremarkable, it contains a variety of nationalities, although not to the extent of South West Sydney, in mostly generic middle class housing.
Melbourne has an ongoing campaign to try and convince people that it is the best city of the two, while Sydney is more concerned with proving it. The two cities have a sporting rivalry in
Association Football (The two cities otherwise tend to mainly support the
other two codes of Football dominant within their states.).
Sydney in media
Anime
- Mobile Suit Gundam and the many sequels. Sydney was destroyed in a Colony Drop. It appears in Stardust Memories as a giant bay, an extension of the Pacific Ocean.
- Silent Möbius shows the Sydney Opera House in the first episode to make it clear that the supernatural phenomenon occurring is global.
- Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo has a scene where the characters travel to 'Sydney, Australia', in which everything is written in Japanese, and all the Sydneysiders are kangaroos or koalas.
Comic Books
- For a period in the late '80s the X-Men went further underground than usual and operated out of a hidden base in the outback (requisitioned from a band of cyborg Road Warrior rejects) with the aid of a mysterious Magical Indigenous Australian teleporter. This was one of the few places where they mixed up both Sydney and the outback. (Odd, considering Chris Claremont has been to Sydney.)
- When Young Justice visited the Sydney Olympics, there were kangaroos bounding through the Olympic Village (which was seemingly situated on the side of a cliff within easy eyeshot of Sydney Harbour).
- In Y: The Last Man, post-Gendercide Australia has become the single most powerful navy in the world, based on having the only female piloted submarines, and the entirety of Sydney has become a heroin addicted slum from south-east Asian pirates smuggling drugs into the country.
Film
Literature
- Looking For Alibrandi features a teenage girl's urban life in Sydney.
- Markus Zusak's Underdog series is set around Sydney's east-southeast, and The Book Thief contains a mention of Glebe at the end of the book.
- Taronga by Victor Kelleher. Guess where.
Live-Action TV
- Dance Academy - a lot of it is set in or around the Sydney Opera House.
- Housos - Set in a fictional suburb that is satirical combination of various Western Sydney suburbs and communities.
- The Girl From Tomorrow - set in present-day and future Sydney. Notable for featuring a Bad Future Sydney recognisable by a ruined Opera House and Harbour Bridge.
- LOST had a number of flashbacks set there. (Especially since most of the main characters had wound up in Australia, and taken the plane, bound for Los Angeles, that crashed on the island.) In one flashback, we see the skyline—complete with the Sydney Opera House—in the distance (courtesy of CGI).
- My Place is a historical childrens' program that starts in modern Sydney, but also features the Sydney site before the actual city was built.
- Pizza is a comedy about working-class Sydneysiders.
- Tomica Hero Rescue Fire Episode 37 one of the battles is set in Sydney. Super Jet Falcon and Gaia Leon did the Final Rescue.
- The second series of Underbelly, based on real life crime series, has half the series set in Sydney, while the third series, The Golden Mile is directly set in Sydney and is about the Kings Cross area of the Inner West.
Music
- Musical groups originating in Sydney include:
Poetry
- The page quote comes from famous Australian writer Henrey Lawson's poem "Sydney-side". Three guesses what it's about.
Video Games
- Sydney receives a Shout Out in SimCity 4: Rush Hour: one of the more common bridge types for Avenues, the Large Steel Arch, is very obviously based on the Harbour Bridge.
Web Original
- Community Channel is created and filmed in Sydney. The channel description includes: If you lived in Sydney, you'd hate cityrail too.
- The Ship Song Project
, a YouTube music video initiative of the Sydney Opera House.
- The Free Hugs original is filmed around the Pitt Street Mall, with brief stops at Martin Place, Town Hall, and Darling Harbour. (This is all in a radius of about 20 city blocks).
Western Animation
- In the GI Joe universe, Cobra operative Major Bludd is from Sydney, and once served with the Australian SAS.
Real Life
- It held the 2000 Olympics, said by the head of the IOC in the closing ceremony to be the "Best Olympics Ever" before Kanye West turned that into a meme.
