Western Sydney is a region of Sydney in New South Wales, Australia that generally encompasses the north-west, outer-west, central-west, south-west and outer south-west suburbs of Greater Metropolitan Sydney, with the Blue Mountains forming the region's western fringe. Western Sydney consists of 11 local government areas: Blacktown, Blue Mountains, Camden, Campbelltown, Cumberland, Fairfield, Hawkesbury, Liverpool, Parramatta, Penrith and Wollondilly.
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. Parramatta was founded in 1788, the same year as Sydney, making it the second oldest city in Australia. Opened in 1811, Parramatta Road, which navigates into the heart of greater western Sydney, is one of Sydney's oldest roads and Australia's first highway between two cities, Sydney central business district (CBD) and Parramatta, which is now the sixth-largest business district in Australia. Rapid population increase after World War II saw the settlement of many ex-servicemen and migrants in the greater west, making it one of the most urbanised regions in the country and an area of growing national importance.The Heritage of Australia, Macmillan Company, 1981, p. 2/24.
Being the third-largest economy in Australia, behind the Sydney CBD and Melbourne, the region covers and is one of the fastest growing populations in Australia, with an estimated resident population of 2,288,554 in 2017. 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 Western Sydney are predominantly working-class, with major employment in heavy industry and vocational trades.
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. The Hawkesbury and Nepean River system is Sydney's firsthand water source and the mainstay of the region's agricultural and fishing industries, and is also major recreational area for the inhabitants of GWS. The heritage-listed Warragamba Dam, the primary reservoir for water supply for Sydney, is located in the greater west.
History
Indigenous settlement Near Penrith, numerous Aboriginal stone tools were found in Cranebrook Terraces gravel sediments dating to 50,000–45,000 BP. For more than 30,000 years, Aboriginal people from the Gandangara tribe have lived in the Fairfield area. Prior to the arrival of the Europeans, the Penrith area was home to the Mulgoa tribe of the Dharug people, who spoke the Dharug language. They lived in makeshift huts called gunyahs, hunted native animals such as kangaroos, and fished in the Nepean River. The Auburn area was once used by Dharug people as a market place for the exchange of goods between them and Dharawal people on the coast. The area that later became Campbelltown was inhabited prior to European settlement by the Tharawal people.Liston, C: Campbelltown: The Bicentennial History, Allen & Unwin, 1988: p.1-4. 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 Parramatta River, which encouraged animals to graze, thus enhancing the ease of hunting and gathering.Department of the Environment and Heritage, Blue Gum High Forest of the Sydney Basin Bioregion (Commonwealth of Australia, 2005), p.1 Most of the First Nations Peoples living in the area died due to introduced 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.
British colony
In 1788, Governor Arthur Phillip had reconnoitred several places before choosing Parramatta as the most likely place for a successful large farm, making it the second European settlement in Australia, after Sydney. Old Toongabbie was established in the same year."Man of Honour – John Macarthur", Michael Duffy, Macmillan 2003, p. 81 ff The Sydney Cove region originally settled in 1788 turned out to be unsuitable for farming, and after a number of years of near-famine in the colony, efforts were made to relocate food production inland to hopefully more climatically stable regions. Phillip sent exploratory missions in search of better soils and fixed on the Parramatta region as a promising area for expansion and moved many of the convicts from late 1788 to establish a small township, which became the main centre of the colony's economic life. Nevertheless, poor equipment and unfamiliar soils and climate continued to hamper the expansion of farming from Farm Cove to Parramatta and Toongabbie.
In February 1793, the Auburn area was established as the first free-agricultural settlement thanks to Governor Phillip's repeated applications to the British government for free settlers, and by the end of that decade Prospect, West Pennant Hills, Baulkham Hills and Greystanes were established.J Henniker Heaton, Australian Dictionary of Dates and Men of the Time, Sydney, 1873 Eighteen months after the landing of the First Fleet, an exploring party led by Captain Watkin Tench set out to further findings made by Governor Phillip where, in 1789, they discovered the broad expanse of the Nepean River and Penrith. Windsor Road, one of the oldest roads in Sydney, was opened in 1794.Old Windsor Road and Windsor Road Heritage Precincts, Roads and Transport Authority, Published on 16 November 2010, Retrieved on 16 July 2013 In 1795, Matthew Flinders and George Bass explored up the Georges River for about 20 miles beyond what had been previously surveyed, and reported favourably to Governor John Hunter of the land on its banks. The earliest recorded white settlement in the Fairfield district is described in William Bradley's Journal where he noted an expedition from Rose Hill to Prospect Creek to determine whether Prospect Creek led to Botany Bay.
The Battle of Parramatta, a major battle of the Hawkesbury and Nepean Wars, occurred in March 1797 where resistance leader Pemulwuy led a group of Bidjigal warriors, estimated to be at least 100, in an attack on a government farm at Toongabbie, challenging the British Army to fight. On 4 March 1804 Irish convicts rose up in Rouse Hill as one, in what was to become known as the Castle Hill convict rebellion.
Governor Lachlan Macquarie and Mrs Macquarie preferred the clean air of rural Parramatta to the unsanitary and crime-ridden streets of Sydney and transformed Old Government House, Parramatta, into an elegant Palladian-style home in the English manner. Originally constructed under Governor Hunter in 1799 to reflect the economic importance of the Parramatta district, the building remains today Australia's oldest public building and was given World Heritage Listing by UNESCO in 2010.
In 1803 a government stock farm was established in what was to become the Riverstone/Marsden Park area, on the basis of the abundant water supply and good grazing land there, and also in Smithfield, due to its good soil and dependable water supply. Windsor is the fourth-oldest place of British settlement on the Australian continent, where European settlers utilised the fertile river flats for agriculture. Governor Phillip Gidley King began granting land in the area to settlers in 1804 with Captain Daniel Woodriff's on the banks of the river the first land grant in the area.
Urban development
Liverpool Hospital was founded on a portion of land beside the Georges River, making it the second oldest hospital in Australia.Raszewski, C. et al. (2013). 'The History of Liverpool Hospital: From early settlement to 1993'. The Liverpool Historical Society, Liverpool City Library and Liverpool Health Service. Fairfield railway station was opened in 1856 and has the oldest surviving railway building in New South Wales.Sydney's Forgotten Quarry Railways Oakes, John pp28-37 Quarrying in the Prospect area began in the 1820s and naturalist Charles Darwin visited Prospect Hill in January 1836, to observe the geology. Designed and constructed by the NSW Public Works Department, Prospect Reservoir was built as Sydney's main water supply in the 1880s. The Upper Nepean Scheme was commenced in 1880 after it was realised that the Botany Swamps scheme was insufficient to meet Sydney's water supply needs. By the latter part of the nineteenth century coarse-grained picrite, and other dolorite rock types were being extracted from William Lawson's estate on the west and north sides of Prospect Hill.
Lansvale was a popular recreational site of the early 20th century due to its waterways and meadows. During World War II, Bankstown Airport was established as a key strategic air base to support the war effort and the control of Bankstown Airport was handed to US Forces. Campbelltown was designated in the early 1960s as a satellite city by the New South Wales Planning Authority, and a regional capital for the south west of Sydney.The Book of Sydney Suburbs, Frances Pollon, Angus & Robertson Publishers, 1990, p. 45, . Until the 1950s, Liverpool was still a satellite town with an agricultural economy based on poultry farming and market gardening. However the urban sprawl of Sydney across the Cumberland Plain soon reached Liverpool, and it became an outer suburb of metropolitan Sydney with a strong working-class presence and manufacturing facilities.The Book of Sydney Suburbs, Compiled by Frances Pollon, Angus & Robertson Publishers, 1990, p.155, In the 1950s and 1960s, there was a large amount of suburban development both in the current suburb of Blacktown and the new suburbs that sprung up around it, which led to civic development in the town centre with the Blacktown Hospital opening in 1965.
Migrant communities In the 1960s and 1970s, migration from south-east Asia as a result of the Vietnam War transformed Cabramatta into a thriving Asian community. Also in the 1970s, an influx of Middle Eastern immigrants, namely Lebanese people, settled in Lidcombe, Bankstown and the surrounding suburbs.From the Irish and English in the late 18th century, to Lebanese and Vietnamese in recent years – Bankstown has always been a hub for migrants Opened in December 1985, in Eastern Creek, Wonderland Sydney was the largest amusement park in the southern hemisphere until its closure in 2004.'Wran Opens Wonderland'. Staff Newsletter Vol.1 No 1. (New South Wales, Australia).
In 2015, the Abbott government granted 12,000 extra humanitarian visas to persecuted Christians, largely the Assyrians, in war-torn Middle Eastern countries such as Iraq. They were admitted to Australia as part of its one-off humanitarian intake, with half of them primarily settling in Fairfield and also Liverpool.
Western Sydney is also the urban area with the largest diaspora of Mandaeans in the world. Mandaeans in Western Sydney have migrated from both Iraq and Iran. Mandaeans primarily live in Liverpool, Fairfield, Campbelltown, and surrounding areas of western Sydney.
Geography Topography