Australian Coastal Cities Trivia Quiz

Answer: Sydney

Sydney was first settled as a penal colony after Captain James Cook discovered the east coast of Australia in 1770. The penal colony program ceased in 1850. The city had 35 000 inhabitants then and it grew rapidly. After WWII, Australia embarked on a mass immigration program, mainly from Europe and in particularly Great Britain. Population exceeded 1.5 million in 1950 and three million in 1975. Sydney in the early 21st century has over four and a half million people. Built on one of the most beautiful harbours in the world, residential waterfront property is amongst the most expensive in the world.

It is often defined in terms of its two most recognisable sights: the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Sydney Opera House, the latter of which became a World Heritage Site in 2007.

Answer: Cairns

Cairns is a new city even by Australian standards, not being settled until 1878 when it was needed as a port to export gold mined on the Atherton Tablelands to the west atop of the Great Dividing Range. The railway reached Cairns soon after and it was this access to Brisbane that allowed a thriving agricultural economy to be established on the cooler Atherton Tablelands. Cairns being a typical tropical place with monsoon rains in a humid summer and a dry mild cool season that passed itself off as winter, meant it was an ideal place to grow sugarcane, a crop that is still important. Because of its closeness to the Great Barrier Reef, Cairns has nearly always had a tourist trade but it has become its biggest industry with its own international airport, unusual for a regional Australian city.

Answer: Brisbane

Brisbane, named after its river was first settled in 1823 as a penal settlement after a settlement 17 miles north at Redcliffe was abandoned. The Brisbane settlement was made on the same site as where the modern city centre is, in a sharp bend in the river. Brisbane is known as the River City as it dominates the cityscape carving a meandering path from the the north east to the south west.

The whole city is on a flood plain with the city being flooded badly in 1893, 1974 and 2011. The city is a central city in a conurbation that spreads from the Gold Coast in the south to Toowoomba in the west to the Sunshine Coast in the north. Brisbane is the capital of Queensland in the south east corner of the state, 3400 km from the state's northern tip. Brisbane is the economic hub for the state as well as being the entry point for the tourist centres of the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast. Brisbane CBD is triangular, with two sides being river and the third side being a hill called Spring Hill.

This inability for the CBD to expand has resulted in the city growing upwards into an impressive skyline.

Answer: Newcastle

Newcastle was first settled in 1797 due to a good river and proximity to coal fields. (Its first name was Coal River before it was named after England's coal port, Newcastle-upon-Tyne). The worst convicts were sent there to work the coalfields. In time, a steelworks was built as necessary fuel was nearby. Newcastle was always a working town and was hit hard by the downturn in the 1970s and the economic recession in the 1990s.

In the 21st century, Newcastle has reinvented itself as a centre for health and education with the two major hospitals and the Newcastle University being the major employers in town. With city beaches and closeness to the Hunter Valley, one of Australia's premier wine making regions, tourism plays a major role in its economy.

In 1989, it experienced an earthquake which killed thirteen people.

Answer: Adelaide

Adelaide, was settled as a planned city in 1836. As most Adelaideans would be able to tell you, Adelaide is the only one of the six state capitals that was not, at one time a penal settlement. The planning of the city is exquisite with a greenbelt surrounding the main city centre, which itself is built around five public squares.

There is only 12km between the Gulf of St Vincent in the west to the Mt Lofty Ranges in the east so the city is over 50 km long, north-south, as a consequence. Consistently voted in the world's top ten most livable cities, Adelaide has a mild climate and an "easy-goingness", that is not apparent in the four cities in Australia that have a greater population. Capital of South Australia, it is the state capital with the highest proportion of the state population living in its capital. (In 2015 this was 1.3 million out of a state population of 1.7 million). Adelaide is known for its multitude of festivals.

It is also close to the wine-making regions of the Barossa Valley (north) and McClaren Vale (south).

It is also within easy drives of other major wine-making regions such as Clare Valley and Coonawarra. This is because coastal South Australia has very favorable climatic conditions such as hot dry summers and mild wet winters.

Answer: Darwin

Darwin, on the Timor Sea in north-central Australia, was discovered by Lieutenant John Stokes who visited what is now Darwin Harbour in 1839, on HMS Beagle. It was named after the famous naturalist (initially Port Darwin, then Palmerston and finally Darwin in 1911) who was a key figure on the ship's previous expedition. Twenty years later, there were only around 100 people in the settlement but the Overland Telegraph needed to be built and it connected with the rest of the world at Darwin.

This initiative boosted population.

The population increased further by a gold being discovered at Pine Creek in the 1880s when holes were being dug for the telegraph poles. Darwin became a key city in the 20th century as it was the closest city to key nations in South East Asia.

It was bombed in WWII, rebuilt and effectively rebuilt after it was flattened by Cyclone Tracy in 1974. It is a thriving tropical city with good connections to the rest of Australia through the Stuart Highway, The Ghan railway (named after the Afghani trainers who came to Australia with camels for the Burke and Wills Expedition) and the thriving international airport.

It is closer to five national capitals than its own capital in Canberra.

Answer: Melbourne

Melbourne was settled by John Batman in 1835 but not primarily as a penal settlement. Convict numbers were few compared to other cities like Sydney, Hobart and Brisbane. Melbourne flourished in the 1850s, because of the gold rushes of Ballarat and Bendigo in inland Victoria (proclaimed as a separate colony in 1851).

At separate stages, Melbourne was considered the wealthiest city in the world, had the largest population of any city in Australia, and served as an interim national capital from 1901 to 1927 until the planned city of Canberra and specifically a parliament house could be built in Canberra.

In the 21st Century, Melbourne has a population of well over four million people making it the second largest city in Australia. It has been proclaimed as "The World's Most Livable City" for the five years 2010-15 and is widely regarded as the sporting and cultural capital of Australia.

Answer: Perth

The Swan River Colony was formed on the river of the same name in 1829. It was not the first settlement in the new colony of Western Australia (Albany on the southern coast holds that honour) but it was settled to ensure the French did not claim the western side of the continent. Perth grew rapidly and became the fourth biggest city in the country, overtaking Adelaide in the 1980s.

The post-war boom in Perth's population has been due mainly to WA's enormous mining industry. It is one of the most isolated major cities in the world (with only Honolulu being the further most away from any other major city). Perth is closer to the national capitals of Indonesia and East Timor than Canberra, its own national capital.

Answer: Hobart

Hobart Town was first settled in 1804 after a penal settlement at Risdon down on the opposite bank of the Derwent River was abandoned. The Hobart cityscape is dominated by two features. The 4100 foot Mt Wellington which rises sharply upwards, after the hilly western suburbs of Hobart start to rise.

The Derwent River turns into an estuary downstream and is one of the earth's deepest harbours. The river is important to Hobart as it provides access to open sea fishing grounds (Hobart was once the centre of Australia's whaling industry) and Hobart has become the centre for the Australian and French Antarctic divisions, with many research activities and facilities dotted around the city. Hobart is the largest and capital city of Tasmania, though it and Brisbane are the only two state capitals that have less than 50% of their state's population residing in its capital city.

Answer: Geelong

Geelong was first settled in 1838, only three years after Melbourne. Situated on Corio Bay within the larger Port Philip Bay, the town served as a port for the local wool industry. The town expanded rapidly in the 1850s when gold was discovered around Ballarat and Bendigo, both in the centre of the state and Geelong was the ingress point for the immigrants and the egress point for the gold ore.

After the gold ran out, the town became involved in manufacturing, particularly wool and paper products.

Heavy manufacturing dominated the city (proclaimed in 1910) until the 1960s when the demand for these industries faded. In the 21st century Geelong's economy is based on service industries particularly around health and Deakin University. The city models itself as a Gateway City to the South Coast, the Great Ocean Road and to regional central Victoria.