What does NSW include?

New South Wales (NSW) is Australia's most populous state, with about 8.4 million people in 2024, and the third-largest by area at about 801,000 square kilometres. It includes the cities, coastal plains, mountain ranges, and inland plains of south-eastern Australia, and surrounds the Australian Capital Territory.

Geographically the state divides into four broad regions: the narrow Pacific coastal strip with most of the population (including Sydney, Newcastle, and Wollongong); the Great Dividing Range with the Blue Mountains, the Snowy Mountains, and Mount Kosciuszko; the western slopes of the dividing range with grain and cattle farms; and the inland plains stretching to the South Australian and Queensland borders, including the Riverina and the Darling Basin around Bourke and Walgett.

New South Wales was the first British colony established in Australia, founded at Sydney Cove on 26 January 1788 with the arrival of the First Fleet under Governor Arthur Phillip. The colony originally extended over most of mainland eastern Australia, with Tasmania (1825), Victoria (1851), and Queensland (1859) all separating later. NSW was one of the six federating colonies in 1901 and remains Australia's most populous and most economically significant state.

Sydney is the financial capital of Australia, home to the Reserve Bank of Australia, the Australian Securities Exchange, and the headquarters of most major banks. The state contributes about a third of national GDP. Beyond Sydney, NSW has the largest agricultural sector of any state by output, with cotton, wheat, rice, beef, and wool the main products. The Hunter Valley is one of Australia's oldest wine regions, and the Illawarra and Hunter coal fields remain major coal exporters even as the state government implements an ambitious renewable-energy transition through the Renewable Energy Zones framework.