Sydney and its suburbs cover about 12,400 sq km, from the Hawkesbury River in the north to the southern tablelands in the south and from the Blue Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. Long fingers of bush-land extend deep into Sydney's metropolitan heart, making it vulnerable to bush-fires.
In Sydney's central business district, colonial public buildings and handsome terrace homes sit next to modern skyscrapers, such as Sydney Tower (305 m/1000 ft). Also downtown is Sydney Harbour Bridge, which for many years symbolized the city. Completed in 1932, the bridge linked northern Sydney with the southern and eastern suburbs and was at that time the largest single-arch bridge in the world. The bridge was eclipsed as a symbol with the opening, in 1973, of the multishelled Sydney Opera House. Located at Bennelong Point, an arm of land jutting into Port Jackson, the Opera House is now one of the most famous pieces of modern architecture in the world.
Sydney has a population (1993 estimate) of 3,719,000. The metropolitan area is populated mostly by descendants of British and Irish immigrants, but, as in other major Australian cities, Sydney has been transformed in recent years by migration from southern Europe and Southeast Asia. Sydney has large concentrations of Lebanese, Vietnamese, and other Asian immigrants, as well as large numbers of Italians and Greeks. The growth of greater Sydney has caused a continual rise in housing costs and forced many residents to the outer suburbs. Aborigines constitute 0.6 percent of the city's total population.
