Greater Western Sydney

Greater Western Sydney is a large region of the metropolitan area of Greater Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It includes 13 local government areas: Blacktown, Canterbury-Bankstown, Camden, Campbelltown, Cumberland, Fairfield, Hawkesbury, Hills Shire, Liverpool, Parramatta, Penrith, Wollondilly and the western portion of the City of Parramsatta Council. The region covers 5,800 square kilometres and is one of the fastest growing populations in Australia, with an estimated resident population of 2,288,554.

About Greater Western Sydney in brief

Greater Western Sydney is a large region of the metropolitan area of Greater Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It includes 13 local government areas: Blacktown, Canterbury-Bankstown, Camden, Campbelltown, Cumberland, Fairfield, Hawkesbury, Hills Shire, Liverpool, Parramatta, Penrith, Wollondilly and the western portion of the City of Parramsatta Council. The region covers 5,800 square kilometres and is one of the fastest growing populations in Australia, with an estimated resident population as at 2017 of 2,288,554. Western Sydney has the most multicultural suburbs in the country with 38% of the population speaking a language other than English at home, and up to 90% in some suburbs. Containing about 9% of Australia’s population and 44% of Sydney’s population, the people of GWS are predominantly of a working class background, with major employment in the heavy industries and vocational trade. Encompassing significant areas of national parks, waterways and parklands, agricultural lands, natural bushland and a range of recreational and sporting facilities, the region also largely contains remnants of critically endangered native Cumberland Plain Bushland and World Heritage-listed areas of the Blue Mountains. Radiocarbon dating suggests human activity occurred in the Sydney metropolitan area from around 30,000 years ago. The Darug people lived in the area that was greater western Sydney before European settlement regarded the region as rich in food from the river and forests.

The people of what is now known as Carlingford, a suburb on the eastern peripheries of the greater west, were the Wallumedegal people, who practised fire-stick farming along the northern banks of the Parramata River. Most natives died due to diseases, such as smallpox, following the arrival of the First Fleet, and the remainder were largely relocated to government farms and a series of settlements. The area that later became Campbelltown was inhabited prior to European settlement by the Tharawal people. The Warragamba dam, the primary reservoir for water supply for Sydney, is located in the greaterwest. The Sydney Cove area was once used by Dharug people as a market place for the exchange of goods between them and Dharwal people on the coast. The city of Sydney Cove originally settled in 1788 after the British occupation of Australia began, but turned out to be unsuitable for farming, after more than a number of years of drought. It is now the sixth largest business district in Australia and the second oldest city in Australia. Opened in 1811, it is Sydney’s oldest road and Australia’s first highway between two cities – Sydney CBD and parramatta. It was founded in the same year as Sydney, making it the first city to be named after a British explorer, William Makepeace Thackeray, who was born in Sydney in 1780. It’s the third largest economy in Australia behind Sydney CBD and Melbourne, and is the mainstay of the region’s agricultural and fishing industries.

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