61 3 9532 8
92
Fax. With a population of
,
, the country operates under Westminster-style federal system. It has a rich and very well-documented history of traditional urban slums and
their transition from poverty to mixed-income status;
history of multicultural development, which gave a lot to both the city and the nation; and the rather deep regional segregation of social and
income groups through globalization and through which slums may appear in the future. It has
temperate climates, more than 3
0 sunny days per year,
and an average rainfall of 1210 mm. It is intensely cosmopolitan, with
,
foreign-born over one million people and
,
,900,000 second-generation immigrants, with only about
,
of each national and ethnic group represented. The first
economic and population boom, coinciding with the discovery of
gold in the 1850s, was followed by a
depression in the 1860s, when Sydney's first large
slums appeared.
The hilly side of the hinterland and northern areas in general, and the waterways on which
Sydney is built, have caused problems with inland traffic
flow and access, and pushed house prices about 30% higher than other Australian cities. It has an area of
, about 1580 km2 - similar to London and 15
times the size of Paris.
Although most of Australia's exports are raw agricultural or mineral commodities, only about 3 percent of the
population is employed in primary industries. On the one hand, this gave it global prestige,
"must see" status for tourists and good access to the Asian market.
