Newcastle, New South Wales

Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia, is an industrial city 160km north of Sydney, by the mouth of the Hunter River.

The first European to explore the region was Lt. John Shortland in 1797, and in 1798, coal mined from the area was the New South Wales colony's first export. An attempt to establish a permanent settlement in the area (then called Coal River) failed but in 1804 the current city (briefly called King's Town) was established. Initially this was a penal settlement, with agriculture the only industry.

Coal mining began in earnest in the 1830s. In the 1890s a zinc smelter was built by Cockle Creek and in 1915 the BHP steelworks opened. From then Newcastle began a period dominated by heavy industry and coal mining, however with the steel works closing in 1999 and the expected closure of the Sulphide Corporation works by 2006 the era of heavy industry is passing. Newcastle has always had an excellent string of beaches and the cliched painting of it by outsiders as a steel town alone is less and less accurate each year. On December 28, 1989, an earthquake measuring 5.5 on the Richter scale killed 13 people. Coincidentally, a small island now known as Nobby's Head was joined to the mainland, a distance of about 50 metres, with rubble from the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco. Newcastle is also widely recognised by outsiders as having a similar culture to that city.

It has one university, the University of Newcastle, which was formerly part of the University of New South Wales. The student body annually celebrates "Autonomy Day" as the anniversary of the institution's independence from the parent body, with the usual undergraduate mass consumption of alcohol, scavenger hunts, billy cart and beer drinking races. One year a double decker bus was "scavenged" and jammed under one of the concrete footbridges that connect the several hills the campus is built on.

Newcastle has a thriving sports culture centred on the Newcastle Knights Rugby League team. Other major spectator and participant sports include Netball, Basketball, Soccer, AFL, Rugby Union, Hockey and Surfing.

The annual surfing contest 'Surfest' is held in Newcastle. Four time world champion Mark Richards is a local boy who grew up sufing at Merewether Beach.

Newcastle has a large youth music culture. Bands and groups produce in both guitar based and computer based music for a pub based concert scene. Ironically Newcastle's youth culture is underwritten by appallingly high levels of youth unemployment.

Unlike those of its British namesake, who call themselves "Geordies", residents of Newcastle, NSW call themselves "Novocastrians", a word not widely understood elsewhere, certainly not outside Australia.

See also: List of cities in Australia

Population

The metropolitan area of Newcastle spreads over several Local Government Areas. The estimated poulation of the City of Newcastle at June 2003 was 144,375 (Australian Bureau of Statistics), but its neighbour, the City of Lake Macquarie, was actually larger, with an estimated 189,150 residents as of June 2003 (ABS). The combined population of the Newcastle area at the 2001 census was 470,610, making it the sixth largest city in Australia.