Talk:List of cities in Australia by population

message: Shouldn't the Townsville Statistical Division include Thuringowa?  They are seperate Local Government Areas however they are no more two seperate cities than Sydney is ten cities.  See dicsussion in Townsville, Queensland. WikiTownsvillian
Thanks for that edit Bongomanrae, however to be fair now that Townsville has been restored to 13th, Thuringowa should be removed from the list as its population is alredy counted, I have done this today, any objections please post here. WikiTownsvillian (8 Oct 06)
::Just to note, Townsville and Thuringowa LGAs were merged in 2008, so this issue will not be ongoing for future ABS data releases ROxBo (talk) 11:26, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Townsville population 

message: This page is a bit long, and quite old mostly. It needs to be archived. Can someone do it, as my attempts at doing this myself have not been great! ROxBo (talk) 11:29, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. --AussieLegend (talk) 11:45, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Archive

message: The key issue with "Population data in Australia" is that the various classifications of the ABS are not immediately intuitive and overlap considerably. This is the driver behind the repetitive edit/redits that each town or city seems to go through, e.g. (new) editor finds LGA Townsville population is bigger than that listed in Townsville wiki page, so makes well-meaning change (again, and again and again). I think it would be great to have an image (or animated gif?) PLUS a distinct and separate subheading that briefly explains statistical district/division/lga/urban area. The text is sort of already there, but fragmented. Cheers ROxBo (talk) 11:36, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Critical issue

message: Does anyone know where I can find a list of the physical size (square kilometers) of Australia's "Urban Centres"?  Are there any maps out there showing exactly what the Census defines as Urban Centres boundaries? --Criticalthinker (talk) 07:30, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Yep. Just go to the Census search page, key in the UCL you want and highlight it, and a map springs up to the left. If you follow it through and download the "Basic Community Profile" (rather than going to Quickstats) which is a 200k compressed Excel spreadsheet and click on any page number link on the contents page of it, the header section of the resulting page will contain the area. It is laborious and I wish I knew a better way, but that is how I get the areas for suburb articles. We should lobby ABS to produce a nice clean list on their site :) Orderinchaos 08:10, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. I did it for Melbourne and found an area of 2,152.8 square kilometers.  There has to be somewhere on each major 'city' page where it'd help to put this fact, or perhaps to add it to the chart on this page to give an idea not just of population but density.  BTW, I only put 'city' in quotes because what they call cities in Australia, we call urban areas or metro areas, it seems. --Criticalthinker (talk) 03:36, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Urban Centres

message: In the city list, there are "cities" like Gold Coast-Tweed, Canberra-Queanbeyan, Greater Hobart, Albury-Wodonga, Burnie-Devonport, Nowra-Bomaderry and Kalgoorlie-Boulder. Aren't these just the "urban areas"? Six of those seems to include two cities, and to my knowledge, Greater usually means the urban area. The city should just be Hobart.
Reading the text, I understand the listed ones are some kind of Statistical areas. Not sure though why these should be considered cities. 85.217.43.98 (talk) 18:26, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I have to agree with you but there's a long standing consensus that we use the ABS statistical areas to define city boundaries, despite what the individual state definitions may be. --AussieLegend (talk) 09:04, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

text: Two of the six, Nowra-Bomaderry and Kalgoorlie-Boulder, are not "two cities" each - Bomaderry is a suburb of Nowra, Boulder is a suburb of Kalgoorlie, but there's historical reasons why the names are used together. I agree with you on Hobart. We're effectively confined here by Wikipedia's original research policy, which means we have to use what is provided to us even if it's not perfect. FTR, I put in a submission to ABS about some of these issues ahead of the 2011 Census, so hopefully they'll be nice and address some of them for us :) Orderinchaos 21:58, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Didn't even think about it back then, but these so-called cities do not even have articles as "whole" cities. Only one of those, Kalgoorlie-Boulder, links to Kalgoorlie and ignores Boulder. All others have separate articles for both parts, also the new "double city": Newcastle-Maitland, to which Maitland has been added since then. 82.141.67.208 (talk) 00:49, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: The Newcastle-Maitland figure doesn't actually represent anything. The old figure used in the article was effectively the whole lower Hunter Region and included areas that nobody in their right mind would associate with Newcastle, so at Newcastle, New South Wales we used the UCL population, which was 308,308 at the 2011 census but even it covers a lot of Lake Macquarie and one Port Stephens suburb while missing out on several Newcastle suburbs. Newcastle-Maitland SUA is 398,770 and covers all of Newcastle, less than a lot of Lake Macquarie, most of Maitland and some of Port Stephens (but not the suburb included in the Newcastle UCL). The actual combined population of Newcastle (148,535) and Maitland (67,478) is only 216,013 with most of the difference being residents of lake Macquarie which, as always, is denied its identity as a city even though it is the largest city in the region with an area more than twice that of Newcastle and a population much higher than Newcastle. --AussieLegend (✉) 11:21, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  City vs Urban area 

message: According to the census it has a population of around 30,000 but is not on the list.   — Preceding unsigned comment added by 120.17.60.47 (talk) 10:04, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Alice Springs is gazetted (NT Place Names Register) as a town, no matter what its population is. Darwin and Palmerston are the only gazetted cities in the NT. Bidgee (talk) 10:10, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Where Is Alice Springs? 

message: I would appreciate it if someone with more statistical nouse and skill than I can explain how the relevant citation points to the figure 1,738,807 for Perth. I have only been able to find the 'rounded figure'of 1.74 million here. Also, if we are not using a rounded or estimated figure, perhaps we should be including the actual date at which the population was exactly 1,738,807, eh? Cheers, Bjenks (talk) 05:29, 1 April 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: It's in the Downloads tab at that link, but the actual XLS can't be directly linked because the ABS don't allow for it. They should - I've written to them about this some time ago. Orderinchaos 06:02, 1 April 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: The figures for all of the capital cities may be found at the cited source in the table titled "ESTIMATED RESIDENT POPULATION, States and Territories - Capital City and Balance of State/Territory". At the very bottom of the page are three tables. It's the first of these three tables. The populations are always as of 30 June in the year prior to release of the document so, for the 1,738,807 figure it's 30 June 2011, although we round down to just June 2011 in the table, since the actual day is not essential. It's only an estimate anyway. --AussieLegend (talk) 08:44, 1 April 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Aha, so it is, duh! The figure didn't show up in my searches simply because it uses spaces, not commas. So shouldn't your excellent guideline, above, be pasted into footnote #4 for the benefit of inexpert readers like myself? Cheers, Bjenks (talk) 09:56, 1 April 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Perth population 

message: This region of Gosford Wyong Shires has been left out and adds up to around 300,000 people
Could this oversite be rectified please.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.233.26.53 (talk) 09:00, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Central Coast 

message: The 2011 kind of makes these figures inaccurate as the ABS has found its interim estimates were vastly out.  This list needs to be updated with all three columns removed and replaced by the most recent two official census figures - 2006 and 2011. --Biatch (talk) 10:18, 24 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: No, census figures, as admitted by the ABS, are always very out. Why is this? Because there is always a significant undercount, given people who are away/in the car/not answering on the night. This is why the ABS' official estimates will be higher than census figures. Every 5 years based on census data, they will alter their predictions slightly based on the findings of the census. You are right that when they come out with their next set of official estimates, they will be altered down slightly as it is true that they found fewer people than expected. This does not change the fact, however, that the official population estimates are the most accurate numbers and the ones which should be used. Saruman-the-white (talk) 02:03, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  Correct - the estimates are what governments use on a day-to-day basis for planning, while the census gives them more detailed information on a five-yearly basis. Orderinchaos 05:14, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

text: So what of the "50 largest Urban Centres by population" section then.  It uses 2006 Census figures.  Shouldn't they be updated with 2011 Census figures ? --Biatch (talk) 04:13, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Still have to sort out what to do with that - they've done away with UC/Ls and come up with new groupings like "Statistical Area Level 3" and "Level 4". Newcastle is a Level 4, Townsville is a Level 3, the "Greater" areas for metro areas include all sorts of unexpected areas (Melbourne includes Bacchus Marsh and Macedon for example, Sydney contains the entire Blue Mountains and Central Coast, Perth includes Mandurah) and no longer accord with state definitions of metropolitan areas, and there's now no meaningful statistics for Mandurah, WA's second city (you can get them by a two-step process, but that's OR from a Wikipedia point of view). In short, the 2006 areas and definitions simply don't exist any more and for a fair few places there isn't even an equivalent. If anyone has any ideas which do not contradict OR, feel free to suggest them. Orderinchaos 05:14, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, the old Sydney SD is not much different to the new Greater Sydney. It's a completely unrealistic representation of the real Sydney. --AussieLegend (talk) 17:59, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

text: Part of the problem is that with the new designations, there's no way to actually compare metropolitan regions any more - we must be one of the only civilised countries in the world where this is the case! (I'm half beginning to wonder if lobbying ABS is the answer, this *really* is a mess.) The "Greater" regions are useless as a measure as they include all sorts of things which have nothing to do with the metropolis according to anyone else apart from the ABS. Orderinchaos 14:54, 30 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I raised the no 2011 UC/L data on the Australian noticeboard talk page and User:Mattinbgn stated that the 2006 UC/L data was released in a second batch later in the year, I guess we have to hope that is the case. Bidgee (talk) 02:42, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

text: I find it hard to believe that the metropolitan regions are really based on commutership and shared labour markets. The Sydney figures include places like Glen Alice, which is 128km as the crow flies and 223km by road from the Sydney CBD. Sydney also extends north to Catherine Hill Bay, which is 121km from the Sydney CBD, but only 34km from Newcastle. I'm convinced the regions are determined by some gimp that they keep locked in an airless dungeon below the ABS offices in Botswana. --AussieLegend (talk) 05:15, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

text: Agreed with AussieLegend in totality. LGAs are meaningless as a basis for comparison, except to compare LGAs. Perth for instance has just 11k! Bunbury (C) has half of Bunbury's population and actually looks to be smaller than Albany, Geraldton or Bunbury despite being over twice the size. And there was a huge war on Wiki over Townsville and Thuringowa until those two merged in 2008, basically because they're one metro area. Orderinchaos 13:03, 1 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Here's your problem! Located in the Canberra suburb of Belconnen (across the road from Westfield Belconnen), no doubt they just looked at a map and thought that has to be right! Bidgee (talk) 14:23, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

text: You are confusing a few things. The use of the term "City" in administration is not the same as in common language or human geography or urban planning, where the term "city" is independent of the former, and it is the metro area of Sydney or Melbourne which is meant. Also local administrative divisions are quite different in Australia from many other countries, and an LGA can be any type of area, rural or mixed. Unfortunately the ABS doesn't seem to care much about comparability and every year changes many aspects of its methodology. We can either simply reflect the ABS data and note the differences (change of the reference area, etc) or present comparable figures relative to the same metro area (for instance as used in urban planning, simple sum of metropolitan LGAs).  Note that simple calculations are not OR per WP:CALC. --ELEKHHT 16:36, 1 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: In NSW, legislation establishes that city boundaries are officially defined by the LGA boundaries. That's why the city of Cessnock, which is really just what's inside the red line in this map, covers all of this area. If my town were to become large enough to become a city, the city would be called "City of Port Stephens", not "City of Raymond Terrace" and would cover all of the Port Stephens LGA. Sydney is unique in the state, as it is the only city that is comprised of multiple LGAs. Saruman is correct in saying that we should compare LGAs, at least as far as NSW goes. Any other comparison requires a WP:OR definition of a city, as the legislated city boundaries are the official boundaries under the law. However, the NSW city definition doesn't extend to other states. WA, for example, uses a quite different method of defining city boundaries so comparing LGAs is not appropriate. Of course, even in NSW, comparison of LGAs is meaningless because of the variations between them and the "inconsistencies" such as Cessnock. As to what we should do, at Medowie, New South Wales I've added a "Historical population data" data showing the populations at the 2001, 2006 and 2011 census, with citations for each using the map=yes option so that readers can compare the maps used at each census. Perhaps we should do something like that for each city. --AussieLegend (talk) 02:19, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yes, but that is a restriction of the meaning of "official" to local government administration, and as you note that is a very narrow and inconsistent use of the term, most readers wouldn't be interested in. And is not that the urban area definition for cities wouldn't be used by officials, for instance in regional and urban planning, if one really needs to follow the "official" line. Furthermore I thought for being neutral, actually Wikipedia should rely more on science than politics. --ELEKHHT 07:26, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  2011 Census 

message: Some of the urban centre data is incorrect for 2011. For example, see Darwin, where the LGA is used, as well as Palmerstaon. Palmerston is in the Darwin urban centre. List needs a good edit. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.132.161.1 (talk • contribs) 23:28, 2 January 2013‎ (UTC)
:Thanks for identifying the problem with Darwin–Palmerston. This has now been corrected. If you have any other specific errors, please comment directly here; instead of a generalised comment that "Some of the urban centre data is incorrect...". Thanks Rangasyd (talk) 05:03, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Errors in Urban Centre Listing

message: Waste of wiki space folks - its just serves to offend people who live in these areas to see the errors herein and confusion it creates - just delete the page contents and instead put links to the original source, the ABS website, where the data will be current and the statistical codes explained.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 106.68.171.131 (talk) 11:38, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: A waste of wiki space

message: Queanbeyan is addressed as a "city" in its own article, and given a population rank of #37. It links to this article, strangely, though, because the lists only has 'Canberra-Queanbeyan'. Is there (or have there been) a list where a separate entry of Queanbeyan is? 82.141.67.208 (talk) 23:15, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: There were errors in the Queanbeyan article. The population had been updated incorrectly in October 2013, which I've now fixed. "37th" was a carry over from the 2006 census and should have been removed, as it is not listed in this article other than as part of Canberra-Queanbeyan. --AussieLegend (✉) 08:57, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: And I just noticed that Dubbo article claims to use the same 2011 data, and also it has the rank #37... It has over 5,000 less of population, though. 82.141.67.208 (talk) 22:53, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

text: I checked this article's version history, and in first version, there is section "Capital city Statistical Divisions and Statistical Districts by population" which has Canberra as separate entry and Canberra-Queanbeyan unranked and marked with *. To answer to myself: apparently there never were a list Queanbeyan was on its own. 82.141.67.208 (talk) 01:44, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Queanbeyan "city" 

message: Someone wrote to OTRS alerting us to the fact that the above is missing from this list. I figured it was a straightforward add to the table(s), but looking at the inclusion criteria here I'm not so sure. So instead I'm just passing along the request to be actioned if merited and appropriate. Thanks! §FreeRangeFrogcroak 22:38, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Ipswich, Queensland]] 

message: According to the table, the four largest urban centres in NSW are, in order, Sydney, Gold Coast-Tweed Heads, Canberra-Queanbeyan, and Newcastle. But the only part of Gold Coast-Tweed Heads that is in NSW is Tweed Heads, which has a population of only 7,525. (And that assumes that Tweed Heads is part of the Gold Coast, which it isn't.) And the only part of Canberra-Queanbeyan that is in NSW is Queanbeyan, which has a population of 37,991. So the ordering in the table is ludicrous. Each should either be listed only in the state where most of the population lies, or split and listed separately. As presented here the information is misleading.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.255.16.233 (talk) 22:29, 28 February 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: We can't and shouldn't split them as we are taking them as they are from the source. Not up to us to go splitting them. They are listed as Qld-NSW and ACT-NSW are they not? This is accurate. The state with the majority of population can go first. Albury-Wodonga is another one where the majority is in NSW and minority in Vic.--Saruman-the-white (talk) 23:31, 28 February 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Saruman-the-white is correct. Even if we were to try to split them, we couldn't, because we don't know the individual populations. The wikilinks to articles are just guides, we can't use the data from those articles, as they actually cover a  different area to this one. For example this shows the map for the 2014 Gold Coast-Tweed Heads SUA. The Gold Coast article uses an outdated figure from 2010. None of the other areas available from the 2011 ABS QuickStats covers the same area as the SUA, even the SA4, which is most similar. That means we'd be getting different population types from different areas. While I have very little faith in the data in this article, at least it's consistent, more or less. --AussieLegend (✉) 04:37, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I am concerned that this data is mis-used to claim that "Tweed Heads is the sixth largest city in New South Wales".  That article is about Tweed Heads only, not about the larger ABS statistical area, so it is not appropriate to call it "the sixth largest city" just because it is a small part of a region which has a larger population.  I tried to corerct that in the article, but it was reverted by  because of the entry here for "Gold Coast-Tweed Heads".  Is there a guideline for how to handle these cases in articles about the individual towns that constitute these larger areas?--Gronk Oz (talk) 22:49, 13 November 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: It's really just a case of using the correct figures for the particular area. Newcastle has the same issue. People keep referring to parts of Lake Macquarie as suburbs of Newcastle when they are not, the two cities just share a common border, so the populations are often lumped together to make ridiculous claims. Look through the figures available on Quickstats and pick the one that best represents Tweed Heads which is not a city despite the claim in the article. --AussieLegend (✉) 07:56, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

text: Sadly, no, as it changes from state to state. In NSW a city is legally the area of the LGA, but this is different elsewhere. --AussieLegend (✉) 14:54, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  50 largest urban centres by population 

message: Why is Ellenbrook on the list of Greater Capital City Statistical Areas/Significant Urban Areas by population? Isn't it a suburb of Perth? If Ellenbrook is entitled to be listed separately, wouldn't Mandurah be a more appropriate entry? 2001:8003:8656:7600:AD72:5E43:C8E9:19F2 (talk) 10:04, 1 October 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ellenbrook 

message: Not entirely sure about the inclusion of areas and densities in a population article. These can be misleading as (for example) the Brisbane CGGSA has an area of 15000 square km which is almost 3 times that of Perth or 5 times that of Adelaide. In reality of course, about 95% of that population is concentrated in about 2500 square km of that 15000 square km and urban Brisbane is vastly denser than urban Perth or Adelaide. Similarly, Sydney has a very large GCCSA area but Sydney is vastly denser than Melbourne (let alone Perth or Adelaide) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Saruman-the-white (talk • contribs) 06:44, 2 October 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I let it go because it didn't seem to do any harm but you do have valid points. Sydney's GCCSA extends to a ridiculous point beyond what any rational person would consider to be part of Sydney so the population density is not truly representative by any means. This is only supposed to be a list of populations and adding this extra information is beyond the scope of the article. I'm going to be bold and remove it. If the editor wishes to restore, he can argue the merits here. --AussieLegend (✉) 07:17, 2 October 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Areas and densities 

message: 38,000 to 60,000 and 9% growth? One or more of these numbers is wrong. 14.0.230.63 (talk) 06:54, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mildura 

message: The new Australian Bureau of Statistics dataset for population through to June 2019 has been released: https://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/3218.0Main+Features12018-19?OpenDocument  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Happypup398 (talk • contribs) 04:05, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  New ABS Statistics Released 

message: First off, great job to all on keeping this list up-to-date with the ABS's ever-changing and too-complicated different definitions of statistical areas. I've noticed in the years since I created this article nearly 15 years ago that there's never-ending debate and confusion about the different statistical concepts under the post-2011 ASGS, so I tried to illustrate them all on one map, using the greater Sydney area as an example. It's my hope this map could go in the article along with a clearer definition of GCCSAs, SUAs, and urban centres/localities.
As can be seen from the map, the GCCSA for Sydney (black line) is HUGE. It contains the Significant Urban Areas of both Sydney and the Central Coast, and these in turn (along with the other SUAs all marked orange) contain collections/agglomerations of the individual urban centres (in pink), which in Sydney's UC case is still large, including Richmond-Windsor and the lower Blue Mountains, but nowhere near the size of the GCCSA, which as has been pointed out in this talk section, includes vast rural regions.
One thing I've thought about this article recently was that perhaps we should be using the SUA figures in the list for the capital cities as well, as they represent much tighter-defined areas, in Sydney's case not including the Central Coast, which is always contentious. This would require revising the figures of only a few cities on the list. For completeness' sake you could have a 4th list, with the populations of only the GCCSAs. As it stands we've got an awkward inclusion of the GCCSA for each capital along with the SUA for every other city in the land, which I understand was a compromise when the ASGS came out, but has never really made sense to me, as they're defined very differently (labour market areas, vs agglomerations of urban centres less than 5 km apart sharing links).
What does everyone think? I haven't been on this site in 15 years so buggered if I can remember how to sign my name. ҉ Randwicked ҉ 09:35, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Regarding the black lines, why are there so many disjointed lines in peculiar places that aren't Sydney? I'm also concerned about apparently randomly selected areas like Brandy Hill, a small suburb in Port Stephens Council. --AussieLegend (✉) 09:43, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the comments both!Stormcrow, I agree this would be the best solution, retaining a list for the GCCSA, cos as you point out they are regarded as primary (even by the wikipedia articles for each capital city). AussieLegend, the black lines are showing through in places like the coast because they also form the coastline. They just show there because there aren't overlaid boundaries. It might look better if I changed the colour of the black lines to grey. Brandy Hill is labeled because it's a separate urban centre/locality. (The labeling placement is random, done by the GIS software.) - ҉ Randwicked ҉ 00:00, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: I thought the examples might labelled for that reason but it looks weird, Brandy Hill especially because it's just a rural locality - no shops, no urban etc, just farms and large rural residential blocks. --AussieLegend (✉) 15:16, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the further feedback. What might look better would be if I just removed the labels for the individual urban centres. It would reduce the general clutter of the map, and it's obvious that the biggest urban centres are the relevant cities. I'll try revising it tonight. - ҉ Randwicked ҉ 04:51, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

text: Definitely an improvement, although I did like the colouring in the previous version. --AussieLegend (✉) 13:43, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks! I've tweaked it slightly once more. Made the labels bigger and higher contrast so they'd be more legible in a thumbnail, and other minor changes. - ҉ Randwicked ҉ 13:33, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: seems there's been no more feedback the past few weeks, so I might look at expanding on this in the article this weekend, godwilling I have time. ҉ Randwicked ҉ 11:26, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  See my map, see my map, see it's hopef'ly not too crap 

message: E.g. we've still got Mandurah listed as a separate Urban Centre, whereas all the ABS sources I've checked seem to say it merged into Perth's UC from the 2016 census. The next one down would be Alice Springs, if I'm reading the data cubes correctly, but it'll require review of the other entries and units to make sure they actually still exist. Will have a look at it all over the next few days. ҉ Randwicked ҉ 06:45, 31 October 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: I've updated the first section, splitting the GCCSAs into a new table as I originally proposed, given their difference in definition and construction from SUAs. All the units have their formal titles. A couple of units (e.g. the Central Coast, Melton) have appeared from under the shadow of their capital cities. Yanchep appears to be a brand new SUA. There are 101 SUAs now, with populations updated to June 2019. ҉ Randwicked ҉ 09:00, 31 October 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm going to try to tackle the messy Urban Centres/Localities section next. We really should try to get it in order well before the 2021 census happens and new UCs are generated. ҉ Randwicked ҉ 08:28, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Going to revise this article as discussed a few months ago, and noticed some errors 

message: Was this page recently changed? I didn't realize that GCCSA and SUA used different measurements, rather I thought the GCCSA were just the formal names for the capital SUAs. It'd be nice if there can be some explanation in the paragraphs for both as to what the base units are for measurements. The only thing I can compare it to is that GCCSA are kind of equivalent to the United State's CSA and the the SUAs are closer to United States MSAs? As in that both American measurements use counties as the base, but different levels and calculations of commuters to determine these areas. Do GCCSAs and SUAs use the name building blocks but maybe different populations thresholds for said building blocks, or are the two vastly different measurements?
Simpler way to ask this I guess it: Why and how is the Sydney GCCSA different than the Sydney SUA, for instance? --Criticalthinker (talk) 23:25, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi Criticalthinker, I added a 'definitions' section, along with a map, a few months ago, to try to explain the ABS's multitude of confusing units. Essentially, when they changed their statistical geography in 2011, everything became based on 'SA units', SA 1/2/3/4, rather than on the old local governmental boundaries. Why, heaven knows, but now everything is made of these base units. GCCSAs exist only for the capital cities, are built from SA4s (labour market areas), and more or less equal the old capital city statistical divisions pre-2011. At the same time they created a unit called 'SUA' out of the SA2 units (much smaller units representing one or two suburbs), to replace the old statistical areas for the towns and cities, but they created these ALSO for the capital cities, so now each capital city has THREE different population figures (GCCSA, SUA, urban centre), or four if you count its central LGA ('city proper' elsewhere) as well. Hopefully my map clears it up a bit. Sometimes it seems the ABS's primary goal is confusing people. ҉ Randwicked ҉ 02:42, 28 December 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, I scrolled down to see it. I guess my suggestion is that the definitions come first in the article so you're not just tossing people into a bowl of different terms they don't know. But that's up to you all. --Criticalthinker (talk) 04:23, 28 December 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  GCCSA vs. SUA 

message: and this goes completely uncommented on in the media, probably because the ABS's conflicting population units are an unintelligible morass and no-one really gets them. LMFAO. Anyway, I've updated the SUA list from the lastest Regional Population figures released today. Will continue the revisions as I get a chance. ҉ Randwicked ҉ 11:41, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: tl;dr: Sydney's literally only the bigger city because the ABS counts the Central Coast in its population now. ҉ Randwicked ҉ 11:43, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Melbourne's Significant Urban Area population surpasses Sydney's 

message: This is one of my favorite pages to visit. However, I have recently been getting more and more confused about how we define cities in Australia. Each official state government does not reference the Gold Coast, Wollongong or Victor Harbor as anything other than centres. I know that this page uses ABS definitions, however does the general population (who know nothing about what the ABS does and define) consider these urban areas or UCL as cities? When they do, are they taking into account the greater urban land space or just the original core town?
More importantly, how do the state governments use the ABS definitions ? 
If the states or general population do not define the cities based on ABS figures, why does Wikipedia not use what the official authorities do? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sdinesh2222 (talk • contribs) 23:36, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: I am not at all surprised that you are confused. Wikipedia decided to use the ABS figures because they are generally consistent across the country while the definition of cities varies from state to state and even within states there can be confusion. For example, in NSW (where I live), city borders consistently follow LGA boundaries which you would think would be best. However, that's not the case.  became a city when it was a well populated mining centre but the population has decreased now to about 15,000 and it's now just a large town. BUT, once somewhere has become a city it never loses that status. Instead, the City of Cessnock LGA boundaries now include various towns, suburbs and even small groups of rural houses outside of Cessnock proper bringing the population back up to more than 55,000. The ABS definition of Sydney includes one rural place 145km from the Sydney CBD while the generally accepted borders of Sydney stop far short of that. In the recent lock-downs, the NSW government included suburbs in the central coast (not part of Sydney!) as part of Greater Sydney. The ABS definition of Newcastle has included parts of adjacent Lake Macquarie and Port Stephens which is why Newcastle, New South Wales doesn't just talk about actual Newcastle. These are but a few examples but they show the inconsistencies that exist. Regarding Wollongong and the Gold Coast, these are both officially cities. I'm sorry I can't give you a better answer, but I don't think there is one. I'd also note that the ABS is a statistical body and does not necessarily follow state definitions of places. --AussieLegend (✉) 02:40, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Confused about how the general population views what their cities are 

message: Recently had this debate on the Brisbane talk page, and settled on the fact that cities in Australia are ranked by the metropolitan populations and NOT city lgas. To put this bluntly the City of Melbourne is not 5 million people but about 150k, therefore this page should be retitled to reflect that as the term "City" in Australia if often used to define LGAs, whereas this article is not listing cities primarily by their City LGAs but rather metropolitan areas. The article should be retitled to reflect that
: List of cities in Australia by metropolitan population--Caltraser5 (talk) 04:14, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: I've removed the template you added because it is used for section renames, not for renaming whole articles. Your proposed name is not appropriate because not all LGAs are cities, and they are listed in this article. To be fair, "List of cities" is not really correct either, because non-cities are listed. --AussieLegend (✉) 13:36, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

text: The trouble with this is that if you ask most Aussies to describe a city they'll describe the whole urban area, not the central LGA. It's just the way we define things. This article uses Australian English, and the title is correct in Australian English. IMO. Standard caveats re: a particular city's mileage may vary, etc. etc. ҉ Randwicked ҉ 07:52, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: What about different Urban areas within the single Greater Capital City area? For example are Melton or Central Coast considered cities of their own or are they ignored and absorbed under the Capital city  ? 14.201.220.44 (talk) 13:55, 13 May 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cities and Metro areas 

message: the ABS has released the Regional Population Growth series for 2021. Interesting is Sydney pulling ahead of Melbourne again (in SUA population), mainly due to Melbourne losing over 60,000 people net in emigration during the pandemic. I will update things in a day or so. - ҉ Randwicked ҉ 11:59, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Do UCL figures get taken into account for anything anymore or is it ignored if a Urban Centre is part of a SUA already  ? Sdinesh2222 (talk) 08:54, 30 April 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: They are still released, but are calculated for the census only (i.e. every five years). The updated UCLs won't be published until later this year, see https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/standards/australian-statistical-geography-standard-asgs-edition-3/latest-release#release-schedule. ҉ Randwicked ҉ 06:45, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds like another update is coming as the ABS has updated the SUA definitions. Melbourne SUA back in front of Sydney SUA - maybe the missing population moved to Melton? https://www.smh.com.au/national/melbourne-tops-sydney-as-australia-s-biggest-city-on-a-technicality-20230413-p5d04g.html Tml au (talk) 12:31, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  2021 estimates 

message: Am curious if this will be reflected in future GCCSA counts in that Newcastle and the Gong will now start getting included? 
https://greatercities.au/news/greater-cities-commission-to-deliver-six-cities-region  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sdinesh2222 (talk • contribs) 21:17, 14 May 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: good question. I sure hope not, as that would just be excessive, but it'd be a matter for the ABS. I understand they developed the GCCSA units with the intention not to have to alter them unless really necessary. - ҉ Randwicked ҉ 06:37, 15 May 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sydney's Greater Cities Commission 6 region plan 

message: Is there any reason that the data on urban centres on this page only includes data up to 2016 and doesn't include 2021 cencus data? 59.100.112.44 (talk) 23:28, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Because no one bothers to update the list. 2001:8003:900C:5301:18B6:F60A:BA46:2339 (talk) 13:34, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Urban centre 2021 data 

message: Melbourne has overtaken Sydney's population! 131.172.226.227 (talk) 18:13, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: So? It would never catch Sydney in house price. 2001:8003:900C:5301:18B6:F60A:BA46:2339 (talk) 13:35, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Melbourne has overtaken Sydney's population! 

message: Wrongname123 (talk) 11:20, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. — Paper9oll (🔔 • 📝) 14:33, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Semi-protected edit request on 23 August 2023