The 50 largest cities and towns in Australia | Pandemic edition
This is the annual update to the popular Top 50 cities in Australia blog. Updated population data is released every year by the ABS; see what’s changed, what’s stayed the same and how COVID-19 has affected the rankings.
Our most popular series over the past 12 years of writing the .id blog has undoubtedly been our “Top 50 cities”. Everyone loves a ranking! Each year the ABS release population numbers for urban areas of Australia with more than about 10,000 people, and we look at the 50 largest centres to see how population change is altering the rankings. There’s not usually much change year-to-year, but COVID-19, border closures, lockdowns and associated population movement have shifted things around a bit for 2021.
As we’ve previously looked at, Australia’s population growth stalled in 2020-21, due primarily to border closures, and there are now vast differences between growth rates within Australia. Generally our largest cities and established urban areas have declined (particularly Sydney and Melbourne) while places where people look for lifestyle change (now popularly known as “fleechange” areas) within 2 hours drive of the capitals have tended to boom. So here is the list as of 2021.
The usual note: this is a list of “significant urban areas”; it is not the same as the Greater Capital City areas and represents primarily built up contiguously urban parts of our major centres.
| 2021 Pop | 5 year change | 1 year change | |||||
| Rank | Significant urban area | No. | % | No. | % | Change in rank (1 yr) |
|
| 1 | Sydney NSW | 4,959,107 | 321,671 | 6.9% | -7,103 | -0.1% | +1 |
| 2 | Melbourne Vic | 4,901,863 | 355,270 | 7.8% | -65,115 | -1.3% | -1 |
| 3 | Brisbane Qld | 2,495,825 | 213,066 | 9.3% | 20,724 | 0.8% | 0 |
| 4 | Perth WA | 2,099,530 | 117,260 | 5.9% | 15,339 | 0.7% | 0 |
| 5 | Adelaide SA | 1,359,087 | 53,561 | 4.1% | 1,664 | 0.1% | 0 |
| 6 | Gold Coast – Tweed Heads Qld-NSW | 718,772 | 73,061 | 11.3% | 9,402 | 1.3% | 0 |
| 7 | Newcastle – Maitland NSW | 505,489 | 29,773 | 6.3% | 7,471 | 1.5% | 0 |
| 8 | Canberra – Queanbeyan ACT-NSW | 462,984 | 23,013 | 5.2% | -1,841 | -0.4% | 0 |
| 9 | Sunshine Coast Qld | 353,906 | 37,001 | 11.7% | 5,601 | 1.6% | 0 |
| 10 | Central Coast NSW | 338,567 | 10,237 | 3.1% | 1,275 | 0.4% | 0 |
| 11 | Wollongong NSW | 312,167 | 17,383 | 5.9% | 2,823 | 0.9% | 0 |
| 12 | Geelong Vic | 287,704 | 33,408 | 13.1% | 5,385 | 1.9% | 0 |
| 13 | Hobart Tas | 218,386 | 10,990 | 5.3% | -568 | -0.3% | 0 |
| 14 | Townsville Qld | 184,271 | 6,027 | 3.4% | 978 | 0.5% | 0 |
| 15 | Cairns Qld | 155,529 | 6,347 | 4.3% | 224 | 0.1% | 0 |
| 16 | Toowoomba Qld | 140,303 | 6,649 | 5.0% | 797 | 0.6% | 0 |
| 17 | Darwin NT | 132,921 | -177 | -0.1% | -424 | -0.3% | 0 |
| 18 | Ballarat Vic | 111,348 | 9,670 | 9.5% | 1,851 | 1.7% | 0 |
| 19 | Bendigo Vic | 103,575 | 7,641 | 8.0% | 1,112 | 1.1% | 0 |
| 20 | Albury – Wodonga NSW-Vic | 97,274 | 6,438 | 7.1% | 1,215 | 1.3% | 0 |
| 21 | Launceston Tas | 88,884 | 3,152 | 3.7% | -249 | -0.3% | 0 |
| 22 | Mackay Qld | 81,262 | 851 | 1.1% | 351 | 0.4% | 0 |
| 23 | Rockhampton Qld | 79,967 | 1,369 | 1.7% | 374 | 0.5% | 0 |
| 24 | Melton Vic | 77,392 | 15,432 | 24.9% | 1,923 | 2.5% | 0 |
| 25 | Bunbury WA | 75,440 | 1,762 | 2.4% | 271 | 0.4% | 0 |
| 26 | Coffs Harbour NSW | 73,443 | 3,337 | 4.8% | 424 | 0.6% | 0 |
| 27 | Bundaberg Qld | 71,796 | 1,617 | 2.3% | 248 | 0.3% | 0 |
| 28 | Wagga Wagga NSW | 57,004 | 1,204 | 2.2% | 121 | 0.2% | 0 |
| 29 | Hervey Bay Qld | 56,599 | 3,583 | 6.8% | 623 | 1.1% | 0 |
| 30 | Shepparton – Mooroopna Vic | 52,273 | 1,565 | 3.1% | -233 | -0.4% | 0 |
| 31 | Mildura – Wentworth Vic-NSW | 51,794 | 743 | 1.5% | -507 | -1.0% | 0 |
| 32 | Port Macquarie NSW | 50,365 | 3,989 | 8.6% | 882 | 1.8% | 0 |
| 33 | Gladstone – Tannum Sands Qld | 45,987 | 1,033 | 2.3% | 58 | 0.1% | 0 |
| 34 | Tamworth NSW | 43,330 | 1,344 | 3.2% | 81 | 0.2% | 0 |
| 35 | Traralgon – Morwell Vic | 42,567 | 1,182 | 2.9% | 139 | 0.3% | 0 |
| 36 | Warragul – Drouin Vic | 42,115 | 6,592 | 18.6% | 1,484 | 3.7% | +2 |
| 37 | Bowral – Mittagong NSW | 41,454 | 2,801 | 7.2% | 488 | 1.2% | -1 |
| 38 | Orange NSW | 41,162 | 1,576 | 4.0% | 274 | 0.7% | -1 |
| 39 | Busselton WA | 41,034 | 3,344 | 8.9% | 700 | 1.7% | 0 |
| 40 | Dubbo NSW | 39,363 | 2,245 | 6.0% | 311 | 0.8% | 0 |
| 41 | Nowra – Bomaderry NSW | 38,947 | 2,157 | 5.9% | 631 | 1.6% | 0 |
| 42 | Bathurst NSW | 38,087 | 2,209 | 6.2% | 543 | 1.4% | 0 |
| 43 | Geraldton WA | 37,228 | -1,141 | -3.0% | -35 | -0.1% | 0 |
| 44 | Warrnambool Vic | 35,957 | 1,342 | 3.9% | 79 | 0.2% | 0 |
| 45 | Albany WA | 34,612 | 828 | 2.5% | 18 | 0.1% | 0 |
| 46 | Devonport Tas | 30,883 | 983 | 3.3% | 18 | 0.1% | 0 |
| 47 | Mount Gambier SA | 29,940 | 408 | 1.4% | -3 | 0.0% | 0 |
| 48 | Nelson Bay NSW | 28,752 | 1,293 | 4.7% | 259 | 0.9% | +2 |
| 49 | Kalgoorlie – Boulder WA | 28,565 | -2,087 | -6.8% | -354 | -1.2% | -1 |
| 50 | Lismore NSW | 28,469 | -547 | -1.9% | -27 | -0.1% | -1 |
Sydney returns to the top spot
Last year we heralded with much fanfare that Melbourne was the largest city in Australia, overtaking Sydney (using the SUA definition only). This lasted a year; with Melbourne’s population decline due to lockdowns, a loss of more than 65,000 people relegates Melbourne to the #2 spot, with Sydney once more Australia’s largest city (despite its own population fall).
Other notable changes
- Rising areas represent those fleechange locations 100km or so from our capitals. Warragul-Drouin in Victoria rises two places to #36, Nelson Bay NSW is up to #48 and (just off the list) Victor Harbor – Goolwa in SA rises 2 places to #51.
- Plenty of areas have grown or shrunk in population but maintained their position on the list. 42 of the top 50 were at the same position in 2021 as in 2020.
- These top 50 urban areas in Australia contain 21,423,279 people in 2021 – 83.2% of the total for Australia. The top 100 urban areas make up 86.9%. Of course, the top 5 alone – the only cities with over 1 million – make up 61%. We are still a very urbanised country.
- The effect of the pandemic is seen in the fact that 12 of the top 50 urban centres recorded population declines in 2021. The total for the top 50 was an increase of 9,702 people – just 0.05%, This was mainly due to Melbourne’s large fall.
- More than two-thirds of Australia’s population growth occurred in the “Not in a significant urban area” category. This makes up only 13.1% of Australia’s population, but increased by almost 31,000 people for the year, representing a 0.9% increase. This is by far the largest growth in this category since records began in the 1980s. These include all rural areas outside of major centres, as well as smaller towns of less than 10,000 population (and not near the outskirts of a larger urban area).
Urban centres by state
NSW has 19 of the top 50 urban centres, with Qld next on 11.
| State/Territory | Urban Centres in the 50 largest 2021 |
| NSW | 19 |
| Vic | 10 |
| Qld | 11 |
| SA | 2 |
| WA | 6 |
| Tas | 3 |
| NT | 1 |
| ACT | 1 |
Figures will be adjusted post-Census
Note of course that these are pre-2021 Census figures, and will change once the Census results are out. The ABS reviews population estimates after each Census, so we’ll likely see some differences after the June 2022 release of the 2021 Census, which reveal the true extent of the shifts in population distribution.
Melbourne didn’t overtake Sydney last year. It’s population ID using a certain set of stats to promote their own view. ABS uses shows that Melbourne is still approx 1//4 million behind Sydney. No matter how much you will it guys, it doesn’t make it so.
Thanks for the comment Jason. There is nothing political, no agenda here. Melbourne did overtake Sydney’s population on the basis of one geographic measure – as explained in the article. Only on the basis of “Significant Urban Area” – which measures the contiguous built-up extent of the city using (admittedly relatively coarse) SA2 units, and therefore excludes Central Coast from Sydney’s population, which is across the Hawkesbury and discontinuous. By the Greater Capital City definition, which is defined by labour markets and includes Central Coast – Sydney remained larger. And as stated here, for 2021 preliminary results, Melbourne lost population and fell back into 2nd place even on the SUA definition. As with many of these things there is no agenda – but defining the population of a city is not an exact science – as we need an arbitrary measure of where it starts and ends. Australian cities are generally not defined by “city limits” or other administrative boundaries but by empirical measures like urban spread and labour market travel to work. But you can argue the case for many different geographic definitions.
what lgas are included in newcastle newcastle is actually closer to 700k
Thanks Tim – this is a “Significant Urban Area” definition – which includes largely contiguous urban areas only. For Newcastle this is the bulk of the population in the LGAs of Newcastle, Lake Macquarie and Maitland, with the town of Cessnock also included. This link to ABS Quickstats shows the area extent of it https://www.abs.gov.au/census/find-census-data/quickstats/2016/1023 – The whole Hunter Valley region doesn’t quite reach 700k – at the moment the population estimate is 672,000 and that includes all of Port Stephens, Singleton, Musswellbrook etc. which are not part of the Newcastle urban area.
Melbourne has Melton knocking at the door.
Hi Glen. Thanks for this interesting material! You mention Updated population data is released every year by the ABS….beyond the actual Census, obviously? Curious what is their method for getting the information every year?
Hi Anthony, – yes it is released ever year. It takes into account births and deaths registered, and estimates of migration in and our of an area, which has multiple sources, like overseas settlement arrivals and medicare change of address records for local migration. The further you get from a Census, the less reliable these figures are, and potentially compound errors each year, so that’s one reason we need a Census to rebase the population estimates every 5 years.
Probably too late for this comment
But since when was Port Macquarie in VIC??!!
Thanks for the comment. I’ve fixed up this error. But please note that the populations in this list are now out of date and superseded by Census 2021 updates.
Hi Glenn, great read! Would be very interested in the updated figures and insights.