Talk:List of Sydney suburbs

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[edit] Older comments

No offense to efghij but see Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (city names). There will be suburbs in Sydney that exist not only in New South Wales. For example, Auburn is also a place in South Australia. Alex.tan 02:25, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

We should use the current policy for the moment. The page can be changed if the [City, State] format becomes official. Incidently, if you are going to move pages from on namespace to another, please use the "Move this page" link on the left side of the screen, so that the page's history is moved as well. - Efghij 02:36, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Question: How was this list determined? How far does "greater Sydney" extend? Does it extend, e.g. as far as Katoomba or Gosford? What about Wiseman's Ferry (which is not on the list, but which is part of Baulkham Hills Shire?)

One possible solution is to define "greater Sydney" as the "County of Cumberland", but the County of Cumberland is something that just about no one who lives there has ever heard of (unless they like to look up Government surveying records...)

Also, what constitutes a suburb? Is it a postcode? In which case, both the University of Sydney, and Macquarie University, and I assume (but don't know) several other universities, are all suburbs, since they all have separate postcodes... -- Anon.

I think that this article should be moved to "Sydney Metropolitan Area", and information would be added to the article to make it relevant.. e.g... list all subdivisions before the city (just like how U.S. cities are in counties)

I also think that the suburbs should be listed by population, if possible. WhisperToMe 05:58, 19 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Circular Quay and Goat Island are suburbs? Moriori 07:53, Dec 11, 2003 (UTC)

[edit] naming conventions

(moved from user talk:clarkk 05:02, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC))

Hi Clarkk, I changed the Regions of Sydney template slightly, to better differentiate between cities and other types of LGA. See my changes to the Sydney page. Do you think I shoud just place the Regions template in the article in place of the long list that I've put there? --Randwicked 10:30, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC)

hmm, not sure about putting the template in the article, let me think about it. thanks for your updates, by the way. i have been doing some updates to the the LGA of NSW article, trying to get things straight there as well, if you're interested. cheers clarkk 22:24, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Right, I'll take a look. Also, you've moved Randwick and Tamworth, is (town), New South Wales the standard? Because it's been done pretty randomly all over the place. It might take a while to redirect every article that's currently at (town), Australia.--Randwicked 04:46, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)
i think it's better and safer to use (Town), (State) format, rather than (Town), Australia, because so many towns names are reused in different states and contributors from one state will only be familiar with the one's from their states. using town, australia, privileges one state's town above another one. obviously some are well known, or are unique, that they can be know without qualification, e.g. Sydney is simply Sydney, not Sydney, Australia or even Sydney, New South Wales, and Wagga Wagga only exists in australia, but for most towns, using the state for the disambiguation is better, ihmo.
although it's not a standard per se, it is in wide use (for example most US towns, use town, state, rather than town, usa), so it could be proposed as a formal standard. i move pages when i see them, but haven't done a systematic search yet. also for some where (Town), (State) already exists and is a redirect to (Town), Australia the redirect needs to be deleted by a sysop before the move can take place. clarkk 08:21, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Naming is important. I mass changed the list of sydney suburbs when it first came out to say (suburb), New South Wales (see old revision instead of just (suburb) but that change got reverted ... now it's in a mess of (suburb) or (suburb), Australia or (suburb), New South Wales ... *sigh* Alex.tan 10:48, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)
i agree it's a bit of a mess. if a suburb is unique to nsw, then it's fine to have it without disambiguation, because it facilitates serendiptious linking, e.g. there aren't too many other warrawee's in the world, if there is more than one anywhere else in the world, then suburb, nsw should be used, but i agree that it should never be (suburb), australia because there are just too many overlapping town/suburb names in australia, and contributors are invariably unaware (myself included) of town/suburbs outside their own states. none of the us towns use (town), united states. so what i'm saying is that a mix of (suburb) and (suburb), nsw is ok, but never (suburb), australia. maybe a sysop could help out with fixing Newtown, Australia back to Newtown, New South Wales. clarkk 12:21, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)
With the LGAs of NSW, it might look better to say Albury, City of; Ashfield, Municipality of, etc. so the names are all in a neat column down the left hand side. I changed the As and Bs so you can see what I mean.--Randwicked 05:24, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)
good idea, fine by me. clarkk 08:21, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Well, I may have messed things up: I was doing something unrelated and found 'Camden, Australia'; I thought that was silly because no one would find it there, never mind that there is probably more than one Camden in Australia, so I changed it to Camden, New South Wales, but it looked clunky so I changed it to Camden (New South Wales) thinking that would be a better place for a stub. Should it be Camden, New South Wales? Quill 23:22, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)
yep, it should be, but it can easily fixed by moving the page (see wikipedia:move a page), i have gone ahead and done it. clarkk 22:58, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Good for you--thanks! Quill 01:05, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Broadway

Somebody removed Broadway saying "not a suburb." Is ther still a PO and postcode for Broadway?

Broadway is a locality, it has postcode 2007. Ref: 1998 Gregory's Sydney Street Directory; Suburn and Localities list --darkov

[edit] Seperate pages for LGAs and suburbs that share the same name

I would like to bring up the pages on the Local Government Areas in Sydney. Of the 38 LGAs, there are 34 that share their name with a suburb. The exceptions are Botany Bay, Ku-ring-gai, Pittwater and Warringah. I would like to suggest that for the remaining 34, that there be a page about the LGA and a page for the suburb itself.

At the moment, there is Baulkham Hills Shire and Baulkham Hills, New South Wales; Hornsby Shire, New South Wales and Hornsby, New South Wales; Municipality of Strathfield and Strathfield, New South Wales; Sutherland Shire and Sutherland, New South Wales; City of Sydney and Sydney central business district. I have also, in the last couple of days, separated "Botany Bay" into Botany Bay (the bay itself), Botany, New South Wales (the suburb) and City of Botany Bay (the LGA).

So out of the 34, only 5 have separate pages. This means there are 29 pages which combine information about the LGA and the suburb itself.

Melbourne have separate pages about their LGAs but only a handful share the name.

I think its important to clearly state the difference between the two.

Please add any thoughts or comments -- Ianblair23 01:28, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for taking this issue up. How should we distinguish between LGAs and suburbs? Should we use something like "City of Bankstown, New South Wales" and "Suburb of Bankstown, New South Wales"? Should we also have guidelines on what sort of material should be included in one or the other? -- Newhoggy 06:59, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
All Australian localities - bar capital cities and a few extremely well-known places - must follow the "{Town/Suburb}, State" convention. The way to differentiate LGA's that share a name with a suburb/town is to use its official name. Thus, "City of Bankstown" or "Sutherland Shire". I believe, like Ianblair above, that LGA's should always be found at the official name, rather than the associated town. This is what is done for SA LGA's. There may be some exceptions, which would need to be defined, but I think this should be standard. I also think I remember there being a discussion about this some time ago, but I may be wrong. Probably best leave notices on WikiProject Sydney and AWNB before finalising anything.--Cyberjunkie | Talk 08:56, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
100% agree. It's kind of the only sane way of organising things. However, Sydney is always changing suburbs and amalgamating LGAs, so page moves and merges are going to be needed as these things happen. - Ta bu shi da yu 02:37, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
This is a very good idea... I've already done this for Strathfield - the LGA is Municipality of Strathfield. In order to sort out overlapping history I made an article call the History of the Strathfield area. - Ta bu shi da yu 02:32, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
Below are listed the official names of each of the 38 LGAs. This was taken from Local Government Areas of New South Wales and reconfirmed by each of their websites.
The question that I put before everyone is should we put the articles under these names or should we add ", New South Wales" after each as we do for the suburbs. -- Ianblair23 23:56, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
I don't think the "state" clause is necessary for LGAs; they are distiguished enough by their official names. Also, it would be aesthetically hideous.--Cyberjunkie | Talk 09:18, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
I agree with you. Ok I will go ahead and start separating them out. -- Ianblair23 03:43, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

As can be seen by the list above, I have just finished creating pages for the LGAs. Two points - "Hornsby Shire, New South Wales" was changed to "Hornsby Shire" and "City of Canterbury" is at "City of Canterbury, New South Wales" due to the City of Canterbury in Kent, England.

Both the {{Sydney regions}} template and the Local Government Areas of New South Wales page has been updated with the correct links. -- Ianblair23 14:21, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

The "City of Liverpool" is now at "City of Liverpool, New South Wales" and "City of Liverpool" is now a disambiguation page. -- Ianblair23 06:05, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

I would argue that LGAs would take priority over Suburbs. In my case of Campbelltown, people more easily identify the name "Campbelltown" with the wider city than with the suburb itself, and I'd suggest that would be the case with most LGAs. I think it would make more sense to have "Campbelltown" (to use my example) as the LGA article and "Suburb of Campbelltown to refer to the small suburb in the middle of the LGA. Braue 15:03, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Help requested to add a least a stub entry for every Sydney suburb

Folks, I've made some updates to many Sydney suburb articles. Here's what has been done:

  • Added stubs for many missing suburbs (still need to do 'B' to 'H' inclusive, otherwise have tried to add stub).
  • Added map links to almost every suburb (still need to do 'B' to 'H' inclusive, otherwise have tried to add maps).
  • Added Sydney suburb categories where required.

In the process of doing this though, there were some questions I had that I cannot answer. I'm asking for your assistance in solving these, because when B-H plus these last these few things are done then we should have at least a stub, with map links, for every suburb in Sydney. This would be a great position to be in, as those stubs will provide the basis onto which people with local knowledge will be able to build, and will have an entry in the Wikipedia for every single Sydney suburb.

These are the questions and problems that remain to be solved or done:

I could not find longitude and latitude information for the suburbs below. Firstly, can we please check that they really are suburbs (and if they aren't, can we please remove them from the List of Sydney suburbs). And if they are suburbs, can someone please find longitude and latitude info, and add this to the pages using the Template:Mapit-AUS-suburbscale (see most Sydney suburbs - e.g. Arcadia, New South Wales - for an example of how to use this).

  • Warringah Mall -- Is this really a suburb? Thought it was a just a shopping mall. (e.g. does it have it's own postcode?) Have removed this from list of suburbs for the time being.
  • Town Hall, Sydney, New South Wales. -- Is this really a suburb? (e.g. does it have it's own postcode?) Have added as a Australian building stub for the time being.
  • Quarry Hill, New South Wales. - Location information seems to be wrong, cannot see on this map:

http://www.street-directory.com.au/sd_new/genmap.cgi?x=150.751&y=-33.782&sizex=800&sizey=800&level=5&enlarge=1&star=6

http://www.street-directory.com.au/sd_new/genmap.cgi?x=150.751&y=-33.715&sizex=800&sizey=800&level=5&enlarge=1&star=6

Other questions:

Should these be removed from the list of suburbs of Sydney?

Removed as already pointed to an existing suburb:

  • St Ives Chase. - is "St Ives Chase" a distinct suburb from "St Ives" ?

Added, but want to double-check:

Other things found whilst going through the articles:

Badly needs to be cleaned up and made less POV:

  • Macquarie Fields. -- E.g. the current text be reworked, and the stuff on the talk page be incorporated into the main thing?

Admin action required:

Could not suburb see at the map co-ords I found, so no additions have been made - please check co-ords (and update if necessary) and then add their appropriate suburbs:

http://www.street-directory.com.au/sd_new/genmap.cgi?x=150.94387&y=-33.94969&sizex=800&sizey=800&level=5&enlarge=1&star=6

http://www.street-directory.com.au/sd_new/genmap.cgi?x=150.81667&y=-34.10000&sizex=800&sizey=800&level=5&enlarge=1&star=6

http://www.street-directory.com.au/sd_new/genmap.cgi?x=150.82267&y=-33.77287&sizex=800&sizey=800&level=5&enlarge=1&star=6

http://www.street-directory.com.au/sd_new/genmap.cgi?x=150.77702&y=-33.34061&sizex=800&sizey=800&level=5&enlarge=1&star=6

http://www.street-directory.com.au/sd_new/genmap.cgi?x=150.92040&y=-33.93059&sizex=800&sizey=800&level=5&enlarge=1&star=6

http://www.street-directory.com.au/sd_new/genmap.cgi?x=150.66439&y=-33.80745&sizex=800&sizey=800&level=5&enlarge=1&star=6

http://www.street-directory.com.au/sd_new/genmap.cgi?x=150.88944&y=-33.76920&sizex=800&sizey=800&level=5&enlarge=1&star=6

-- All the best, Nickj (t) 08:51, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

Also, if your suburb is missing from this list, then please add it (e.g. there are some suburbs listed on Template:Sydney Manly suburbs and Template:Sydney Warringah suburbs and Template:Sydney Pittwater suburbs that do not appear on this list). Looking to either add any missing subrubs to this list, or remove them from the different regional suburb lists if they aren't suburbs. -- All the best, Nickj (t) 08:59, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
I don't know what source you've used for coordinates. The one I use is Geoscience Australia place name search. Type SUB is a suburb, LOCB is a town (many are now suburbs anyway), and LOCU is much the same, but doesn't have gazetted legal boundaries. Abbotsbury is listed as LOCB for example. --Scott Davis Talk 10:50, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
Thank you for that - I was using a data source which came via the Australian Bureau of Statistics, and it sometimes had omissions or errors (so does Geoscience Australia from the looks of it, but not so much). I've added the suburbs I can now (so the only things listed above are questions that are still open), and will also add the link to this data source to the mapping information section. -- All the best, Nickj (t) 03:01, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
Hey Nick, wow what a great job!! Now that all the LGAs have been created, I think that the opening sentence should read something like:
{{suburb name}} is a suburb in the {{LGA name}} in the {{region name}} of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia.
For example:
Randwick is a suburb in the City of Randwick in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia.
or
Quakers Hill is a suburb in the City of Blacktown in Western Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia.
or
Mona Vale is a suburb in the Local Government Area of Pittwater Council on the Northern Beaches of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia.
I think we need some sort of consistency across the board on this.
Also, I have created the {{Sydney Blacktown suburbs}} template which has been placed on all the suburbs in the City of Blacktown. It would be great if we could create a template for each of the other LGAs.
In regard to the {{Sydney regions}} template, I have removed it from all of the suburb articles and placed it only on the LGA and Sydney region articles.
Now in regard to your queries Nick. I know this has been asked several times but what is the "official" boundaries of Sydney. For instance to the west, is Kurrajong in Sydney? Is Emu Plains in Sydney? Is Mulgoa in Sydney? To the south, is Narellan in Sydney, is Waterfall in Sydney? To the north, is Forrest Glen in Sydney, is Brooklyn in Sydney? Is there a boundary at all?
My answers to the questions above is I don't know. So who is to decide whether we include a suburb in this project or not. Perhaps we can start a list of questionable Sydney suburbs. My suggestion is that we do not let that stop us writing about them.
Now another question which I sure has been asked before is how is a "suburb" defined? What is the difference between a "suburb" and a "locality". Again I don't know the answer. However, I do know that just because an area is assigned a postcode, that doesn't mean it is a suburb or even a locality. So Warringah Mall is definity NOT a suburb.
It may not be the absolute best source, but the newly released 2006 UBD Sydney and Blue Mountains Street Directory (42nd Edition) lists all the suburbs and localities. It states that "with the help of the appropriate authorities we have differentiated between suburbs and localities." They also have a third category, "local name or railway station". So using this:
  • Town Hall is listed as a locality.
  • Quarry Hill is not listed at all.
  • Pendle Hill South is NOT a suburb. Nor is "South Pendle Hill" for that matter. One has to be careful when "North", "South", "East" and "West" is being used as either a prefix or suffix in suburb names.
  • Mount Pleasant is listed as a "local name".
  • Newbury is currently not listed. However, Newbury will eventually become a suburb. It currently falls within the boundary of Stanhope Gardens just off Old Windsor Road. It is a massive housing estate similar but larger than Glenmore Park, near Penrith.
  • Kingswood Park is listed as a "local name".
  • Lemongrove is listed as a "local name" under "Lemon Grove".
  • Kings Cross is listed as a locality.
  • St Ives Chase is listed as a suburb.
  • Maroubra Junction is listed as a locality.
In regards to Illawong, I have informed Ambi, an admin, about the requested page move.
Please add any thoughs or comments. Regards -- Ianblair23 05:26, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

I agree that it would be good to have a definition of what counts as a suburb i) to go on this page; ii) to be called a suburb on it's page (not necessarily the same thing). I wouldn't have called Wolli Creek a suburb, having lived near there for quite some time, but apparently the Geoscience Australia list calls it a locality and Australia Post call it a delivery area, so maybe that's enough to put it on the list. Should it really be called a suburb, though? (and as an aside, was it even a locality name before the station was built??) JPD 16:52, 2 September 2005 (UTC)


Thank you both for the great feedback and info! Some notes below:

  • Pendle Hill South, New South Wales has been removed from the list, as it's not a suburb (had no article, so no article to delete).
  • Quarry Hill, New South Wales has had speedy deletion requested, and has been removed from the list of suburbs.
  • Added an attempt at a definition of what can and cannot be included to the top of the list, as follows: Definition of what can and cannot be included: A suburb or locality can be listed here if it is included in the "Suburb and Localities Index" of the most recent edition of the Sydney UBD street directory, as either a suburb, or as a locality which is shown on the map. Localities not shown on the map, and "local names" should not be included in this list. Does that seem reasonable? It basically matches 99% of what's already on this list, and the 1% in which it differs from the list is the dubious stuff that we're already trying to work out what to do with. For example, the three "local names" listed above (Mount Pleasant, Kingswood Park, and Lemongrove) would not make the grade, but the listed localities (Kings Cross, Maroubra Junction, and Town Hall) would make the grade. It's also a simple, qualitative, and unambiguous test, plus it makes it much easier to work out what's missing.
  • Some possibly missing suburbs / localities: For 'W' to 'Z', in my old copy of the UBD (32nd edition), it lists the following suburbs & localities: Yellow rock, New South Wales, Yarrandale, New South Wales, Wynyard, New South Wales, Wisemans Ferry, New South Wales, Winmalee, New South Wales, Werombi, New South Wales, Webbs creek, New South Wales, Warumbul, New South Wales, Warrimoo, New South Wales. Are these also in your more recent edition? If so, and if you're happy with the definition of what to include, can you please add them to the list of suburbs?
  • Wolli Creek, New South Wales is not in the list of suburbs in my old copy of the UBD, but I don't know if that's because it has been added since. Can someone please check if it's include in a more recent edition? If not, maybe we should remove it (if you're happy with the definition of what and what not to include).

-- All the best, Nickj (t) 01:33, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

I don't feel that using a particular street directory's listing is an appropriate way to define it. Also, even if localities (eg Wolli Creek and Marrickville South - probably many more) should be listed in this list of Sydney suburbs, I don't think they should be called "suburbs" on their pages. As for your listed missing suburbs - I'd gues most of them are at best borderline Sydney. Winmalee and Warrimoo are both in the Blue Mountains. JPD 09:50, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
Agreed, because there will never be agreement on which street directory is to be taken as authoritative. The mapit links in Wikipedia seem to use street-directory.com.au which is based on Sydway (my personal favourite), but in Sydney more people use Gregory's/whereis.com.au - we don't need religious wars about which street directory to use. Maybe Australia Post's postcode list, ignoring anything that is a Mail Centre, GPO/PO Boxes only, etc.? Haven't looked at the list to confirm feasibility of that, will do so at a more civilised time of day. --Paddles 15:08, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Definitions - OK, but rather than a negative ("don't feel that"), can you please express a positive - e.g. "I would suggest that we define a Sydney suburb as X", where X is some criteria that would be acceptable to you. I know it's harder to do that, but the point is it's much more constructive because it gives us something to work with.
  • I've changed the first line of the Wolli Creek and Marrickville South articles to say they are localities, not suburbs. I have not altered their suburb stub status or their suburb categories, simply because I'm not sure what to do with these - i.e. should these stay as is, or should we make up new stubs / categories for Sydney localities?
  • Which suburbs to include as part of Sydney is a subset of the whole definition problem. Provide a good definition, and it will automatically tell you what counts as a suburb and what doesn't, and what counts as part of Sydney, and what doesn't.
  • For my 2 cents, to the north if it includes Gosford and surrounds it's gone too far, to the south if it includes Wollongong and surrounds it's going too far, to the east is ocean so that's easy, and towards the Blue Mountains the western-most suburbs we have currently seem to be Leonay and Emu Plains (maybe we should say if you're west of the City of Penrith you're part of the Blue Mountains, rather than a suburb of Sydney?). Far north-west and far south-west may need some similar semi-arbitrary cut-off point. -- All the best, Nickj (t) 00:00, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
I have rethought my position, and now think that we should only include places classified as "suburbs" by the Geographical Names Board. I apologise about Wolli Creek - it has been classified a suburb since 2002. The GNB also lists "localities" (eg Town Hall, North Homebush) and "neighbourhoods" (eg Marrickville South), but I don't think these need to be included. The question of boundaries of Sydney is a bit hard - the LGAs of Sydney box uses the lgas classified as Sydney by the Dept of Local Government, but I don't think the LGA boundaries are always helpful. City of Penrith is a good boundary, but IMHO Richmond should be inside the boundary although Hawkesbury LGA isn't counted as Sydney. In the absence of anything better, I'd use the Hawkesbury/Nepean River in the north/north west, and then the boundaries of City of Penrith, Camden Council, City of Campbelltown and Sutherland Shire. (does this go too far south?) JPD 11:45, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

I have compiled a list of the differences between the current list, and a list using my proposed definition at User:JPD/suburb. This might make it easier for anyone to comment on the definition. JPD 18:56, 6 September 2005 (UTC)


I like your list, and I like your definition. How about the following as a suggestion:

  • Anything with "???" gets deleted both from the list, and gets speedy deleted as an article (i.e. Anzac Village, Chatham Village, North Cronulla, North Engadine - all of which are either stubs, or don't exist yet). From previous discussion somewhere above, Newbury seems to be an exception, because it's so new, and so it should probably be kept.
    • From comparing my old UBD to a current web map, Anzac Village, New South Wales is slightly north of Wattle Grove, and now called Greenbrook village. It is at best a locality, plus it's not included in the Geoscience Australia or the GNB databases, so I reckon kill it.
    • Also from comparing my old UBD to a current web map, Chatham Village, New South Wales is slightly east of Wattle Grove, and now called Steele Barracks. It's a barracks, so it's not even a locality, plus it's not included in either the Geoscience Australia or the GNB databases, so I reckon kill it.
    • There is no North Engadine in either the Geoscience Australia or the GNB databases. (It is however listed as a locality in my old copy of the UBD.) To avoid it being recreated, I'm leaning towards making this a redirect to Engadine, and removing it from the list. That way if we change our minds, or if it later becomes an official suburb, that edit can always be reverted.
    • There is no North Cronulla in either the Geoscience Australia or the GNB databases. (It is however listed as a locality in my old copy of the UBD.) To avoid it being recreated, I'm leaning towards making this a redirect to Cronulla, and removing it from the list. That way if we change our minds, or if it later becomes an official suburb, that edit can always be reverted.
  • Anything in bold gets added as a suburb (both to the list, and I'll add suburb stubs when I get around to it).
  • Anything in that's an Urban Place / Neighbourhood / Locality / Point / Port / Hill / Island / Historical Locality / Urban Locality, we keep in the list, but we put (Locality) or (Neighbourhood) or whatever after their listing, so that people know they're not technically a suburb, but we still retain all the usefulness of having them in this list. The articles are updated accordingly so that the description doesn't say "is a suburb of Sydney", but instead says "is a locality / neighbourhood / whatever of Sydney". This also prevents people from re-adding them to this list. I know this suggestion is likely to be the most contentious.
  • We do the four article moves suggested by the list (Tennyson -> Tennyson Point, South Strathfield -> Strathfield South, West Strathfield -> Strathfield West, and East Balmain -> Balmain East).
  • For Flemington and St Helens Park, which can't decide if they're suburbs or neighbourhoods, we give them the benefit of the doubt, and treat them as suburbs.
  • The definition of what can listed on the list is updated to say it must be on the GNB website + be within the boundaries suggested. Any localities / neighbourhoods / etc can be listed, but must be clearly marked as such in the list. Also we let people add these as they come across them, rather than trying to be exhaustive about it (as we probably should be for suburbs) - for example, I don't intend on adding stubs for things in these categories, but I do intend on doing so for missing suburbs.

Thoughts / comments / ideas / suggestions ? -- All the best, Nickj (t) 02:17, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. My only resevations are about the "most contentious" suggestion. Putting (Locality), etc would clutter the list a lot. Would it be better or worse to put all the non-suburbs in italics, with an explanation at the top? I think I have seen that style used in street directories somewhere. As for including them in the list, your suggestion (can be added if on GNB, but no need to be exhaustive) sounds reasonable when thinking of the list as a whole, but I don't think there needs to be a separate article for some of the places already listed - mainly those are contained in a suburb. When I get round to expanding Marrickville, New South Wales (I am a bit far from my reference materials for my liking at the moment), I should include everything that could possibly be in Marrickville South, New South Wales. Maybe the solution is to leave it on the list as a neighbourhood, but make the article a redirect? I am also a bit worried that too many Points / Ports / Hills / Peninsulars / Islands might be added - maybe there should also be a condition that these (or non-suburbs in general) should only be included if they are used as a locality name in a modern street directory. Same goes for Historical Localities - some are more "historical" than others. Looking forward to your thoughts - we seem to be getting somewhere! JPD 13:04, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

That all sounds fine to me. I've done my best to put the above into practice, because I think we're basically in agreement:

  • removed the 4 duds from list
  • added the missing bolded suburbs to the list
  • put any non-suburbs into italics
  • did the 4 moves and updated the list
  • updated the definition of what's on or can be added to the list

Please don't hesitate to update/edit any of the above if I've missed anything or if you think there's a better way to do it. Also having redirects from locality names to suburb articles sounds fine to me, assuming that the suburb article includes most of what would have gone in the locality article if they had been separate. -- All the best, Nickj (t) 02:41, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Tennyson Name clash?

Tennyson Point, New South Wales and Tennyson Point. Same name, yet one is near Glossodia, and the other is near Gladesville. Is there a better way to name these, so as to differentiate them? - All the best, Nickj (t) 08:41, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

Based on http://www.ga.gov.au/bin/gazm01?placename=tennyson&placetype=R&state=NSW and the map linked from Tennyson Point, New South Wales, that one (on the Hawkesbury) should be at Tennyson, New South Wales, and the article currently at Tennyson Point should be at Tennyson Point, New South Wales. I also verified that with reference to List of postcodes in New South Wales (N-Z). --Scott Davis Talk 09:49, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

Tennyson, (on the Hawkesbury) has the official name Tennyson, but is outside the boundaries described earlier (NW of the Hawkesbury). According to the GNB, Tennyson Point, near Gladesville has the "Point" added to differentiate the two, but Tennyson is also listed as a variant name. JPD 17:55, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

Thank you both, with the help of Ambi the changes described above have been made, and everything should now be in the right place. -- All the best, Nickj (t) 02:24, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Strathfield West

When I was compiling my list earlier, I didn't notice that the Strathfield West neighbourhood desgination by the GNB was withdrawn in 1992. I haven't found the name on any maps, so unless it is in a modern edition of a street directory, I would suggest removing it. JPD 11:10, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Accuracy of the GNB Register

According to the GNB Register (as referenced in this article), Snapper Island is in the LGA of Leichhardt [1]. But the planning brief from the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust for the same island explicitly states Snapper Island is unincorporated. This means that it does not fall within any particular Local Government Area. [2]. Makes me wonder how accurate the register is. -- chris_j_wood 10:16, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

"You may notice that there are references to 'old' LGA names, topographic maps and parishes in the database. This is because the geographical features were originally gazetted against these old names." [3] Basically, the register is a register of gazettals, not of the current details. Taken in that way, it's quite accurate. JPD 11:01, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Bankstown Airport

The GNB lists 'Bankstown Airport' as an aerodrome with previous name 'Bankstown Aerodrome'. It also lists 'Bankstown Aerodrome' as the current name (assigned 1994) for the suburb surrounding the airport. I agree that this doesn't match common usage, but it is what it says. JPD 09:23, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

OK - I was initially trying to use the existing Bankstown airport article for both the suburb and the airport, but do you reckon two separate articles, one on the airport called "Bankstown Airport" (with all the current airporty stuff including Airport call signs), and a new one on the suburb called "Bankstown Aerodrome" (initally a standard suburb stub plus a link to the airport article) is the correct way to go? -- All the best, Nickj (t) 00:42, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

If the suburb were bigger than the airport, I'd make another article, but it looks like it's at most the airport and a park. Maybe the article should mention that the suburb name is officially Aerodrome. The only question remaining is which name to use in the list, which is difficult, since most maps use "airport" as the name of the suburb as well as the airport. JPD 10:55, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

I'd use the common usage, I think - that's generally what we've done elsewhere in similar situations. Noting the official name would be a good idea, though. Ambi 07:41, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
I grew up in Condell Park, and never heard the terms "Bankstown Airport/Aerodrome" used in the sense of a "suburb". Most people think of residential areas when the term "suburb" is used (maybe that is just my own error?). On the other hand, there are plenty of other accepted "suburbs" which are almost entirely industrial areas, and uninhabited at night. What can I say, "accepted usage" isn't always logical nor consistent. I had always thought the official name of the facility was "Bankstown Aerodrome", even though we referred to it casually as "the Airport".
The GNB Glossary Of Designation Values In The Register defines suburb as "A bounded area within the landscape that has an 'Urban' Character" — which isn't particularly helpful.
The 2006 UBD (42nd edn.) definitely lists Bankstown Airport (not Aerodrome) as a "suburb"; but I have an old 26th edition (no publication year) which depicts it on the map in bold mixed-case (locality) rather than all-caps (suburb) or non-bold (c.f. Riverwood Golf Course). Another notable difference is that the old map only has a Postcode boundary drawn around all the 2200 suburbs, wheras the new one has a Suburb boundary around Bankstown Airport: surely this boundary must have been officially defined somewhere?
The Geographical Names Register Abstract for Bankstown Airport gives "Designation: Aerodrome" (not suburb) [as JPD noted]. Businesses within the area would give "Bankstown Airport 2200" in their delivery address, though.
I'm not sure how much this illuminates the question "what is a suburb?"; more likely it emphasises the difficulties that can arise.
Personally, I'd be inclined to put a section in the airporty article commenting on its questionable status as a locality (or "Urban Place", ergh) vs. suburb, rather than creating a separate entry. But keeping them separate might prevent an aviation-centric user from deleting the toponymic information?
[forgive me for any faux pas, I'm new at this]
Pelagic 12:20, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
There's no faux pas, so no need to apologize. You're welcome to add something to the Bankstown Airport article if you can think of a better way of explaining that it's officially sort-of-considered to be a suburb, although to the local inhabitants it's considered more of a locality. As for the definition of what is a suburb and what isn't, we went through a number of definitions (e.g. using street directories), but they had problems (using street directories relies on an external commercial source; not all are online, such as the UBD; what to do if street directories differ?), so we settled on the current definition (which basically passes the whole problem off to the GNB, but since it's basically their job anyway, and they put their data online, it seems to be the best/easiest/least-ambiguous definition of what a suburb is at the current point in time). So, for the time being, the GNB says that Bankstown Aerodrome is a suburb (and the entry looks current from the "Status" field), but then confuses the whole issue by saying Bankstown Airport is classed as an Aerodrome, and that the previous name is Bankstown Aerodrome! -- All the best, Nickj (t) 06:26, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Some questions

  • Should we add Iron Cove to list of suburbs / localities? (has an article)
  • Should we add Yarra Junction, New South Wales to list of suburbs / localities? (no article, but is in list of suburbs in City of Randwick)
  • Should we add Milson Island to the list of suburbs / localities? (has an article)
  • Should the currently non-existent Broadway article use and expand on the Broadway, Sydney article, which is currently just about the road?

-- All the best, Nickj (t) 09:16, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

    • I wouldn't add Iron Cove, since to me it seems to refer to the bay, not to a land area next to it.
      • OK.
    • Add Yarra Junction if you can find it on a map, or other evidence of significant use of the name, otherwise remove it from City of Randwick. I left it at Randwick because it is in the GNR, but its status is given as decision deferred.
      • I can't readily check it at the moment because the most useful mapping website has just died, but I will look at this again later, and either add a stub or remove it from the list.
        • I have removed it because on the map I can see a Yarray Bay, a Yarra Point, and a Yarra Road, but no Yarra Junction. It can always be added back later if its status changes. -- All the best, Nickj (t) 02:34, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
    • GNB has Milson Island as part of the suburb of Milsons Passage, but it has it's own postcode - that seems significant enough for a listing to me.
      • Done.
    • I think the road and suburb can go together. JPD 09:46, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
      • Cool, done. -- All the best, Nickj (t) 12:57, 27 September 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Yay, no more redlinks! On to cleaning up LGAs...

Yay, there are currently no more redlinks on the list of Sydney suburbs!

I'm thinking now we should clean up the Local Government Areas of Sydney. Doing this will find any missing suburbs or useful localities, and also allow us to strip out the bad data from the LGAs. Some of the lists of suburbs may have come from the department of local government, and unfortunately they are often a little bit too generous with their definitions of what counts as a suburb.

I've had a look through the LGAs and the suburb templates (for those LGAs that have them), and made a list of those that have redlinks left. The ultimate aim being that all either LGAs should have no redlinks or that their redlinks should also be listed on the list of Sydney suburbs.

The following have a few redlinks:

These LGAs have lots of redlinks:

Can I please ask people to have a look at the LGAs they know or care about to help clean them up? Basically we should be able to get all the above LGAs updated to:

  • Favour removing any entries which are not suburbs (as defined by the GNB's name search).
  • Remove any localities which show as status "deferred" using the GNB's name search.
  • Favour removing any localities which are not well known.
  • Suggest leaning towards removing any localities which are redlinks, unless they are well known.
  • Do not remove any items which are suburbs and which are redlinks.

Things to check also are:

  • Check against the list of Sydney suburbs for misspellings of the suburb names.
  • Check against the list of Sydney suburbs for variants of suburb names, especially those that start or end in North, South, East or West. For example "St Ives North" was redlined, but is listed under "North St Ives". In these cases suggest changing the link to point to the right article, and adding a redirect (e.g. from "St Ives North, New South Wales" to "North St Ives, New South Wales"), to help prevent confusion or duplicates in future.
    • Quick update: the suburb table listed below will help with locating missing variant suburb name redirects. -- Nickj (t) 04:00, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

If after the above you do think a suburb or locality that is redlined should be kept and added, can you please add it to the list of Sydney suburbs, as this makes it easy to see what still needs to be done.

-- All the best, Nickj (t) 07:55, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

I've noticed some templates are suburbs and localities whereas others are only suburbs. I think they should be suburbs only as localities hardly get articles. What you think?? Dankru 13:51, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm fairly sure some of the areas in the Sutherland Shire list are fictional, Bangor Heights and Menai Heights I've never heard of but Menai East is occasionally used to describe part of Menai. Granted my knowledge of my own local area is slightly limited, but the Bangor/Menai reigon is the part I know best. Quolnok 05:23, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Extensive table of Sydney suburbs added

Howdy all, An extensive table of Sydney suburbs (and their different possible names) has been added at List of Sydney suburbs/table. The quick primer on using it is this: Ideally everything in columns 1, 2, 5, and 6 should be blue; and everything in columns 3 and 4 should either be red, or if it is blue it should be checked to make sure that it is either a redirect page, or a disambig page that includes a link to the Sydney suburb of the same name, or includes a "see also" link to the Sydney suburb of that name. Currently only the two rightmost columns remain to be done (everything should be blue in these); All the other columns I think should be done now. -- All the best, Nickj (t) 05:04, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Now split between List of Sydney suburbs/table (A-M) and List of Sydney suburbs/table (N-Z), although pretty much everything in those tables is now done I think. -- All the best, Nickj (t) 02:20, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Localities v suburbs

One thing giving me the shits on Council pages in Sydney is that many of the "suburbs" are not suburbs at all! I had to change the City of Ryde list and move all the non-suburbs onto a list of localities. Even then, I would debate a few of them even exisiting as I grew up in Ryde/Hunters Hill area and have never heard of many of the localities referred to.

For example, Monash Park, New South Wales. This is a post office with PO Boxes and a cricket oval. THAT'S IT. No one calls it Monash Park and if they do, they're merely referring to the cricket/soccer ground.

I am sure this is the case for many other Council pages. I have fixed up Municipality of Hunter's Hill and City of Ryde but I know many others need work. Dankru 14:21, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

You want to know where they come from? You sitting down? Ready for the awful truth? From here. That's right. The NSW Department of local government, who maintain a list of what suburbs are in a council, which was the starting point for many of our lists: but it turns out their lists are woefully wrong, and list many suburbs that no sane local resident would say exists. So the very government department responsible for saying who's responsible for what suburb, knows nada / zip / zilch / nothing. Reassuring to see our tax dollars hard at work, huh? Hence the desire to clean up the LGAs. -- All the best, Nickj (t) 23:05, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Town Hall

OK, this is a confusing one, and hopefully I haven't added to the confusion. There seems to be a proliferation of pages about Town Hall, including two building stubs for the building, so I'm trying to clean it up a bit. I removed it from the List of Sydney suburbs and Suburbs of Sydney nicknames on the basis that it isn't a suburb, and isn't shown as such in my street directory (Sydway) - or in the list Nickj mentioned above as it turns out (although I didn't find this page until afterwards). If consensus is deleting the references to it as a suburb was a bad idea, feel free to replace them, I'm not going to get into an edit war over it - but I am going to try and keep working on the conflicting Sydney Town Hall building pages. --Paddles 15:08, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

It's included in my very old (1996) UBD under the "Suburbs and Localities" index as a "Locality". I agree it's not a suburb, and agree with removing any references to it as a suburb; but it may be worth still including it in the list of suburbs, as this list includes many other localities too (basically anything in italics is a locality). Essentially, Suburb: no, Building: yes, Locality: maybe. I don't feel strongly about it either though ;-) -- All the best, Nickj (t) 02:58, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
A lot of "suburbs" in Sydney started because it was too far to walk to the next Cityrail railway station... So if Town Hall isn't a suburb, what suburb is it in? Garrie 04:23, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
Station names don't have to reflect suburb names. Town Hall is in Sydney 2000, as is Wynyard Station. Central Station is in Haymarket 2000. Green Square Station is in Alexandria 2015 (the area is also a locality Green Square, but not a suburb). Similarly, if we look at a couple of small streets near Town Hall, Druitt Lane and Mullins St, they are listed as being in the suburb of Sydney, not the "suburb" of Town Hall. Paddles 11:56, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
I came back for another reason - the comment by Paddles is pretty obvious to anyone who looks in any of the sources for suburb names but it is nice to have it spelt out by someone who cared to get the details correct. Thanks Paddles (however late this is!) --Garrie 00:35, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
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