The BTS is the primary source of forecasts of population and dwellings at the small area (travel zone) level for the Sydney Greater Metropolitan Area. This area includes the Sydney Greater Capital City Statistical Area, and the Illawarra and Hunter regions. There are 2,949 travel zones in the Sydney GMA.

The latest September 2014 Release Population Forecasts provide forecasts at travel zone level for the following variables:

• Population (Estimated Resident Population) by 5-year Age categories by Sex

• Occupied Private Dwellings (Households)

• Population in Occupied Private Dwellings

• Population in Non-Private Dwellings

The forecasts in this release are five-yearly, from 2011 to 2041.

ABS Statistics about the population, density and components of change (births, deaths, migration) for Australia's capital cities and regions.This dataset is based on ABS Population estimates and components by LGA Excel files as data sources.

Every day 1.3 million people live, work, study, do business, shop and go out in our local area. All of these people have an interest in the future of Sydney and can have their say on this plan. Creating places for people to meet benefits business and community life. While 2050 may seem a long time away, we need to plan now if we are to meet the ongoing and future needs of our communities. For more information on planning for Sydney 2050, visit the City of Sydney website.

In June 2022, it was estimated that around 7.3 percent of Australians were aged between 25 and 29, and the same applied to people aged between 30 and 34. All in all, about 55 percent of Australia’s population was aged 35 years or older as of June 2022. At the same time, the age distribution of the country also shows that the share of children under 14 years old was still higher than that of people over 65 years old. A breakdown of Australia’s population growth Australia is the sixth-largest country in the world, yet with a population of around 26 million inhabitants, it is only sparsely populated. Since the 1970s, the population growth of Australia has remained fairly constant. While there was a slight rise in the Australian death rate in 2022, the birth rate of the country decreased after a slight rise in the previous year. The fact that the birth rate is almost double the size of its death rate gives the country one of the highest natural population growth rates of any high-income country.
National distribution of the population Australia’s population is expected to surpass 28 million people by 2028. The majority of its inhabitants live in the major cities. The most populated states are New South Wales, Victoria, and Queensland. Together, they account for over 75 percent of the population in Australia.

Our online accessibility map provides information about some main access features and barriers in the city. This information can help people with mobility requirements and people who use mobility aids, such as wheelchairs, to better navigate the city. For more information on accessibility, visit the City of Sydney website.

This table contains shelter indicators (homelessness of city population) for ACT (SA3) and surrounding NSW Councils (LGA) from ABS estimate of homelessness based on the 2011 Census of Population and …Show full descriptionThis table contains shelter indicators (homelessness of city population) for ACT (SA3) and surrounding NSW Councils (LGA) from ABS estimate of homelessness based on the 2011 Census of Population and Housing. Copyright attribution: University of Canberra - National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling, (2014): ; accessed from AURIN on 12/3/2020. Licence type: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

At the 2021 Australian census, 278,043 people in New South Wales were Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander. New South Wales is Australia’s most populated state, also housing Australia’s largest city, Sydney. By comparison, Australia’s second largest state, Victoria, was home to around 66 thousand Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples

There are around 800,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia, which represents just over three percent of the Australian population. Indigenous people are often referred to as Australia's first people or the traditional custodians of the land in recognition of their ancestors inhabiting Australia more than 60,000 years ago. Australia's Indigenous peoples are represented by two distinct groups. Aboriginal people come from the Australian mainland. Torres Strait Islander people inhabit the group of Islands between the northern tip of Queensland and Papua New Guinea and represent less than 40,000 people.

Closing the gap

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples experience significantly poorer health and wellbeing outcomes when compared to their non-Indigenous Australian counterparts. The average life expectancy of Indigenous Australians is around eight years shorter than that of the non-Indigenous population. In education, Indigenous Australians are also underrepresented, but attendance rates are improving and in 2019, full-time Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students numbered well over 200,000 people.

Public transport services offer a cost-effective, convenient, safe and mostly environmentally friendly travel option to the general public. Prior to the pandemic passenger numbers were growing strongly as the population increased, particularly in Sydney and Melbourne, while public transport fares also expanded. However, travel patterns changed drastically during the pandemic in response to social distancing and lockdown measures, which greatly limited passenger numbers, negatively affecting demand for public transport. Overall, revenue for public transport providers is expected to decline at 3.2% per year over the five years through 2023-24, reaching $28.2 billion. This includes an anticipated increase of 1.9% in 2023-24, partly due to an ongoing, but slow, recovery in the number of commuters. More Australians than ever are living in urban areas, generating strong demand for transport options. Regional cities have also exhibited strong population growth, with residents demanding accessible transport options to and from these towns. Car transport costs and congestion on Australian roads have both increased, encouraging commuters to switch to public transport options. Operators have undertaken efforts to expand their networks and capacity to accommodate growing populations. However, government funding for public transport in many areas has been unable to keep pace with demand, causing some unreliability with services. Public transport providers are set to expand as Australia's population is forecast to increase steadily and workers are expected to increasingly be asked to return to the office, boosting demand for public transport. New capacity and networks across the country are due to open, while improvements to ticketing systems are also set to be implemented. These factors are set to boost passenger use, which, combined with fare increases, is poised to bolster revenue. Additionally, significant investments are being made to make public transport more environmentally friendly, supporting demand from environmentally conscious consumers. Overall, revenue is projected to increase at an average of 1.3% per year over the five years through 2028-29, to total $30.0 billion.

Transport Performance and Analytics (TPA) provides projections of workforce at the small area (Travel Zone or TZ) level for the Sydney Greater Metropolitan Area (GMA).

The GMA includes the Sydney Greater Capital City Statistical Area (GCCSA), the Southern Highlands and Shoalhaven SA4, Illawarra SA4, Newcastle and Lake Macquarie SA4, and Lower Hunter, Port Stephens, and Maitland SA3s, as defined by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). TPA workforce projections are five-yearly, from 2011 to 2056 and relate to usual residents of the GMA aged 15 years and over who are employed. They are estimates of employed people based on where they reside. TPA also produces employment projections based on the workplace or job location. They refer to persons aged 15 years and over, working in the GMA regardless of their place of usual residence. The majority of the persons employed in the GMA also reside in the GMA.

Factors considered in the estimation of workforce projections include: population by age and gender; participation rates; unemployment rates; historical labour force data; past trends of employment in each industry and the forecasts of industry growth or decline in each region.

The Australian Marine Microbial Biodiversity Initiative (AMMBI) provides methodologically standardized, continental scale, temporal phylogenetic amplicon sequencing data describing Bacteria, Archaea and microbial Eukarya assemblages. Sequence data is linked to extensive physical, biological and chemical oceanographic contextual information. Samples are collected monthly to seasonally from multiple depths at seven National Reference Stations (NRS) sites: Darwin Harbour (Northern Territory), Yongala (Queensland), North Stradbroke Island (Queensland), Port Hacking (New South Wales), Maria Island (Tasmania), Kangaroo Island (South Australia), Rottnest Island (Western Australia). The Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS) NRS network is described at http://imos.org.au/facilities/nationalmooringnetwork/nrs/ Port Hacking NRS is located 3 nm offshore at 100 m depth over fine muddy sand, near the major city of Sydney, New South Wales (population 4.3 million). This is a sub-tropical to temperate location with strong seasonality. The site is just downstream of the EAC separation zone and is impacted by the dynamics of flow of EAC and its eddy field. The water column is very well mixed between May and Sept (although the duration of this mixing has decreased in recent years (Ingleton, T. unpublished observation)) and highly stratified between December and March. Upwelling can occur via eddies or wind driven slope water intrusions. There is a long historical oceanographic dataset from this site (with intermittent gaps in certain parameters) dating back to 1953. Site details from Brown, M. V. et al. Continental scale monitoring of marine microbiota by the Australian Marine Microbial Biodiversity Initiative. Sci. Data 5:180130 doi: 10.1038/sdata.2018.130 (2018). Site location: Port Hacking National Reference Station (NRS), New South Wales, Australia Note on data download/processing: Data downloaded from Australian Microbiome Initiative via Bioplatforms Australia Data Portal on 17 June 2022. The search filter applied to download data from Bioplatforms Australia Data portal are stored in the Darwin Core property (identificationRemarks). Taxonomy is assigned according to the taxonomic database (SILVA 138) and method (Sklearn) which is stored in the Darwin Core Extension DNA derived data property (otu_db). Prefix were removed from the taxonomic names as shown in the example (e.g. d_Bacteria to Bacteria). Scientific name is assigned to the valid name available from the highest taxonomic rank. This collection is published as Darwin Core Occurrence, so the event level measurements need to be replicated for every occurrence. Instead of data replication, the event level eMoF data are made available separately at https://www.marine.csiro.au/data/services/obisau/emof_export.cfm?ipt_resource=bioplatforms_mm_nrs_phb

Australia's café and restaurant scene continues to thrive, with New South Wales leading the way with over 19,225 establishments in operation at the end of the 2024 financial year. The second-leading state in terms of the number of cafés and restaurants was Victoria. As Australia's two largest states in terms of population, the concentration of food service establishments in New South Wales and Victoria mirrors Australia's population distribution, reflecting the urban-centric nature of the country's café and restaurant landscape. Gastronomy: a key economic sector In recent years, the number of cafés and restaurants throughout the country has shown relatively consistent growth, exceeding 55,700 in the 2024 financial year, up from approximately 41,570 in 2017. Australia's cafés, restaurants, and takeaway food services turnover experienced steady annual increases for many years up until the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Nevertheless, since 2021, the industry's revenue has been on the recovery, hitting a record of over 65 billion Australian dollars in 2024. Additionally, food services represent a key source of gross value added to the tourism industry. An added boost from coffee Coffee plays an important role in the Australian food service sector, with the beverage topping the list of regularly consumed drinks among Australians in a 2024 survey. Several international chains like McCafé operate alongside popular domestic coffee franchises, including The Coffee Club, in the country. Alongside this, the country's annual domestic coffee consumption remains robust, consistently exceeding two million sixty-kilogram bags in recent years, underscoring the enduring nature of Australia's coffee culture. Nonetheless, recent cost-of-living pressures have led to a shift in consumer behavior, with more Australians opting to brew their coffee at home.

The rent price index in Australia in the first quarter of 2025 was *****, marking an increase from the same quarter of the previous year. Rent prices had decreased in 2020; in Melbourne and Sydney, this was mainly attributed to the absence of international students during the coronavirus outbreak. The current state of the rental market in Australia The rental market in Australia has been marked by varying conditions across different regions. Among the capital cities, Sydney has long been recognized for having some of the highest average rents. As of March 2025, the average weekly rent for a house in Sydney was *** Australian dollars, which was the highest average rent across all major cities in Australia that year. Furthermore, due to factors like population growth and housing demand, regional areas have also seen noticeable increases in rental prices. For instance, households in the non-metropolitan area of New South Wales’ expenditure on rent was around ** percent of their household income in the year ending June 2024. Housing affordability in Australia Housing affordability remains a significant challenge in Australia, contributing to a trend where many individuals and families rent for prolonged periods. The underlying cause of this issue is the ongoing disparity between household wages and housing costs, especially in large cities. While renting offers several advantages, it is worth noting that the associated costs may not always align with the expectation of affordability. Approximately one-third of participants in a recent survey stated that they pay between ** and ** percent of their monthly income on rent. Recent government initiatives, such as the 2024 Help to Buy scheme, aim to make it easier for people across Australia to get onto the property ladder. Still, the multifaceted nature of Australia’s housing affordability problem requires continued efforts to strike a balance between market dynamics and the need for accessible housing options for Australians.