It’s official: Sydney is no longer Australia’s biggest city.
In breaking news straight from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Melbourne has overtaken Sydney as the nation’s most populous city.
For the first time since the gold rush, Melbourne’s population has overtaken Sydney, with our southern brethren clocking in at 18,700 more people than the Emerald City. These stats are actually from June 2021, with it revealed that Melbourne has actually been (quietly) bigger than Sydney since 2018. How’s that for a shock?
When it comes to which areas actually classify as being within the cities of Sydney and Melbourne, the ABS uses a nifty thing called the ‘Significant Urban Area Classification’, which refers to populated urban areas that lie next to each other that each have residential populations of more than 10,000 people. Just recently, when the northwestern district of Melton was amalgamated into Melbourne’s ‘Significant Urban Area’, Melbourne became the biggest city Down Under, with the new boundary line increasing the city's population by the thousands.
Right now, when you count the Sydney Basin and the Blue Mountains into (Greater) Sydney's population also, Greater Sydney is still bigger than Greater Melbourne, but experts reckon that this won’t last for long. Greater Sydney is predicted to grow to 6 million people between 2032 and 2033, while Greater Melbourne will most likely surpass the 6 million mark in 2031.
Why is Sydney no longer Australia's biggest city?
Although the border change is what's caused this recent population spike for Melbourne, population experts are also citing internal migration as the reason why Sydney’s growth has been slowing – many people have been departing Sydney for other parts of Australia. In contrast, Melbourne has seen a massive influx of people moving in from across Australia and overseas, and this trend is projected to continue.
All this said, New South Wales is still Australia’s biggest state – we come in at a hefty 8.23 million to Victoria’s 6.72 million.
So in some ways, we’re still kinda coming up on top.