Sydney surpassed by Melbourne as Australia’s largest city

By HENRIQUE MONTEIRO

Melbourne has topped Sydney as Australia’s new largest Significant Urban Area population for the first time in over a century.

This happened as Melbourne’s borders were redrawn to include the district of Melton towards the total population count of the city – what many have called a ‘technicality’.

The new population of Melbourne has close to 19,000 more people than Sydney, reaching a total of 4.875 million.

Melbourne might not be on top for long

Even though Greater Sydney remains more populous than the Greater Melbourne, the Australian Bureau of Statistics predicts that this might not be the case for long.

In latest release 2021 Census, the ABS revealed the Greater Sydney had a population of 5,259,764 million residents and that the Greater Melbourne area was less densely populated with a total of 4,976,157 million.

However, the federal government’s Centre for Population predicted in January this might change by 2031-32, with Melbourne expected to reach a population as high as 6.101,100 million.

The same prediction expects Sydney to have 6,062,400 million residents by 2031, around 40,000 inhabitants less.

Despite the current change and the decade-long prediction, the NSW is expected to remain more heavily populated than Victoria, with a total difference of close to 1,288,400 million.