Where do Australians mostly live?

Most Australians live within 50 kilometres of the coast, and about 86 per cent of the population lives in urban areas. The east and south-east coasts between Brisbane, Sydney, and Melbourne hold roughly two-thirds of the country's people, in one of the most urbanised national settlement patterns in the world.

Sydney (population about 5.4 million) and Melbourne (about 5.2 million) are the two largest cities, followed by Brisbane (about 2.7 million), Perth (2.3 million), and Adelaide (1.4 million). Together these five capitals account for around two-thirds of the Australian population. Adding Canberra, Hobart, Darwin, and large regional centres such as the Gold Coast, Newcastle, Wollongong, and Geelong takes the share above 75 per cent.

The coastal concentration reflects climate, history, and economics. The interior is mostly arid or semi-arid, with low rainfall and high temperatures that limit agriculture and make permanent settlement difficult away from rivers and bores. Colonial settlement clustered around port cities such as Sydney (founded 1788), Hobart (1804), Brisbane (1824), Perth (1829), Melbourne (1835), and Adelaide (1836), all of which grew up around natural harbours facilitating sea trade with Britain and within the colonies.

The interior is sparsely populated. The Northern Territory has just one person per six square kilometres, and remote stations in Western Australia and Queensland may cover thousands of square kilometres with only a handful of permanent residents. Aboriginal communities make up a much higher share of the population in remote areas than in cities, with about 65 per cent of NT residents in some remote regions identifying as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander.