Due to a counting quirk, Sydney lost its title after over a century. Sydney has long been the most populous city in Australia. Still, last week, Melbourne formally surpassed it as the biggest city, thanks to an anomaly in how the statistics are calculated.
With figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), Melbourne had 4,875,400 people at the time of the country's most recent census in 2021, whereas Sydney had 18,700 fewer residents. This gives Melbourne the title of Australia's most populated city, last held in 1905.
For most of the past ten years, Melbourne's growth has outpaced Sydney's partly because of internal and external migration trends that favor the southern metropolis.
Melbourne took the top spot quickly. The ABS amended a boundary it used to compute Melbourne's population on Thursday, and the city expanded to take in a formerly provincial stretch - Melton - on its north-western fringe. Initially, Sydney had outperformed Melbourne in the census figures.
This was caused by one of the primary population counting techniques used by the ABS. A city's border is determined by its contiguous urban population exceeding 10,000 according to the "significant urban area" measure.
The ABS determined the population requirement had been met to extend the city's periphery as it processed the census results. The population of Melbourne swelled by tens of thousands of people when the city's boundary was modified.
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Melbourne first overtook Sydney in 2018 when comparing the two cities' populations using the new limits. To this point, Sydney and Melbourne each had 1.2 million residents. In contrast, Melbourne had 995,000, making 1930 the closest Melbourne had ever been to parity.
In 1905, Sydney passed Melbourne to become the nation's largest metropolis, a position it has retained ever since. Demographers have pointed out that the population's demographic patterns of around 26.1 million people need to be accurately depicted using the counting method.
Greater Sydney and Greater Melbourne, the other two main categories of population utilized, still place Sydney ahead of Melbourne at 5,259,800 and 4,976,200, respectively.
This is because the Greater Sydney region's boundaries include the expansive central coast region of the Australian state of New South Wales, from which many citizens commute daily to Sydney.
However, Greater Melbourne has long been expected to surpass Greater Sydney. It is anticipated to do so on that measure by 2031–2022.
According to demographer Liz Allen at the Australian National University, Melbourne's population has increased more quickly than Sydney's in recent years because of its attractiveness to both foreign migrants and Australians who reside in other states.
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"Melbourne has an air that diversity seems to be celebrated more," Allen remarked, claiming that recent immigration from India to the city has created a thriving community and made Melbourne a top destination for people from the subcontinent.
Melbourne's lower cost of living, notably for housing, distinguishes it from Sydney as a more attractive location, even though both cities' educational and career options are generally comparable, according to Allen.
"Melbourne has established a pull factor, and we'll continue to see it grow for quite some time," she added.
