How well do you know Sydney?
Sydney's harbour is famous, but how well do you know the engineering, wildlife and history behind it? Six questions, from bridge maths to the city's own name.
Did you know?
- The Opera House roof tiles were made in Sweden by the company Höganäs. Utzon wanted a surface that would look like snow on mountain peaks and change with the light. There are over a million tiles, and specialist teams inspect and replace them one by one when needed.
- The Blue Mountains west of Sydney are named after the blue haze that often hangs over them. Eucalyptus trees release tiny droplets of oil into the air, and these scatter blue light more than other colours, giving distant ridges their soft blue tint on warm days.
- Bondi Icebergs, a swimming club with a famous ocean pool at the southern end of Bondi Beach, was founded in 1929 by lifesavers who wanted to keep fit in winter. By tradition, members commit to swimming there on most Sundays during the cold months for several years.
The stories behind Sydney's harbour
Sydney grew up around one of the world's great natural harbours, officially called Port Jackson, a drowned river valley with dozens of bays and beaches. Aboriginal peoples, including the Gadigal of the Eora Nation, lived around its shores for tens of thousands of years before British ships arrived in 1788. Today Sydney is Australia's largest city, and its ferries, bridges and beaches mean that daily life, from commuting to weekend swimming, often revolves around the water.
Building an icon
In 1957 the Danish architect Jørn Utzon won an international competition for the Opera House with a set of sketches that seemed almost impossible to build. Construction began in 1959, but costs and delays grew, and after a dispute with the state government Utzon resigned in 1966 and left Australia. He never returned to see the finished building, which opened in 1973. Decades later he was invited to help redesign parts of the interior, and in 2007 the Opera House became a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The bridge and the harbour
The Harbour Bridge took eight years to build, with its two halves of the arch growing from each shore until they met in the middle in 1930. It is held together by about six million rivets, driven in by hand. The bridge carries eight lanes of traffic, two railway lines, a footpath and a cycleway. Since 1998, visitors have been able to join guided climbs over the arch, clipped to a safety line, for views across the harbour, the city and the Blue Mountains.
Beaches, pools and wildlife
Sydney has dozens of ocean beaches, from Bondi to Manly, and many are paired with rock pools cut into the shoreline, filled by the waves at high tide. These ocean pools let people swim safely even when the surf is rough. The city's wildlife is never far away: flying foxes stream across the evening sky, cockatoos visit balconies, and the Sydney funnel-web spider lives in the region's damp gardens and bushland. Taronga Zoo, reached by ferry, looks straight across the water to the city skyline.