In what I can only imagine is devastating news to, like, three little freaks from Sydney, Melbourne has officially overtaken the New South Wales capital as Australia’s most populous city.
Stop the press, start the car et cetera.
Melbourne was able to knock Sydney off its high horse thanks to a boundary change, as the city limits were expanded to include the area of Melton.
Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed the new and improved Melbourne’s population was 4,875,400 back in June 2021 — 18,700 more than Sydney.
Congratulations, I guess? I don’t get the hype because I have lived in Perth my entire life, thus the only way this fair city would become Australia’s largest is if a devastating plague broke out in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.
Even if that were to happen, I highly doubt we’d start beefing with Adelaide about whose population is bigger because we’d be too busy planning meet-and-greets with Logan Paul at suburban Woolies stores.
But alas, I digress. ABS demographer Andrew Howe told the Sydney Morning Herald Melbourne’s boundary changed ‘cos the amount of folks in the city’s western fringe ballooned, so the district was able to be included in Melbourne’s significant urban area.
“The 2021 census told us that Melton and the rest of Greater Melbourne was now, statistically, one contiguous area,” he said.
“Until the 2021 census definition, the Sydney significant area had a higher population than Melbourne. However, with the amalgamation of Melton into Melbourne in the latest significant urban area classification, Melbourne has more people than Sydney — and has had since 2018.”
Any Sydneysiders having a sooky la la about the downfall of their ginormous city may take comfort, however, in the fact that Greater Sydney — which also includes the Central Coast and the Blue Mountains — is still bigger than Greater Melbourne.
Of course, this is only until the tables turn within the next decade. Government data released in January showed Greater Melbourne’s population is set to overtake Greater Sydney’s by 2031-32.
All I can say is you Melburnians and Sydneysiders will need to find something else to bicker about other than population. I’m just a Perth girl standing in front of
