Some people enjoy the hustle and bustle of a densely populated city like Melbourne while others love the wide-open spaces you can get in the Australian bush. Quality of Lifeįor homebuyers and renters, understanding population density can help when making decisions about where you’d like to move. It’s important to know how many buses and trains should be running at any given time, how many police stations are required nearby and when it’s reasonable to build another grocery store or shopping centre in an area. Governments and councils also need to have an understanding of population density to properly plan a city. If you’re ambitious and looking to pursue a specific career, places with a higher population density are likely to offer more job opportunities. Concentration of JobsĪnother reason to consider population density is due to the concentration of jobs. While places like Brisbane in Queensland have proposed citywide amendments that would require apartment buildings to provide a certain amount of green and garden space, it’s undeniable that many natural landscapes are affected when population density increases.Ĭreating more sustainable cities is, therefore, a major consideration based on the population density in Australia. This means that green spaces are traded for apartment buildings and houses. Reduction in Green SpacesĪs more people move into cities, more dwellings are erected. Let’s go over some of the specific reasons you might want to get familiar with Australia’s population density, no matter what Australian city you live in. It’s also wise to consider migration rates in any given area.įor governments, home buyers, investors and others, it’s important to know how many people live in a certain area as well as how many people are moving in or out. Still, it’s important to look at the population density of the biggest cities in Australia, not just the nation at large. The population density in Australia matters for the same reasons it matters in any country. Why does population density in Australia matter? Sustainable Cities: Governing Urban Adaptation Under Climate Change So, while Australia’s major cities have population densities comparable to the rest of the Western world, when you take into consideration all the empty space in the middle, you get a low overall population density. To put them into perspective, New York City has a population density of over 38,000 people per square kilometre.Īustralia’s population density is low because most of the country’s interior is desert (also known as the outback) and presents extremely difficult living conditions. Still, for a big city, these numbers are still relatively low. Potts Point and Pyrmont, both in Sydney’s inner-city, have the second-highest population density in Australia at 16,700 and 16,500 people per square kilometre, respectively.Melbourne’s inner city has Australia’s highest population density at 22,400 people per square kilometre.However, in the biggest cities in Australia such as Sydney and Melbourne, the population density increases. Ĭompare that to somewhere like India which has a population density of 464 people per square kilometre or the United States with 36 people per square kilometre, it’s easy to see that Australia’s population is spread out. As of June 2020, Australia’s population density is 3.3 people per square kilometre. While Australia is the 6th largest nation in the world in terms of physical area, its population density is incredibly low. Why does population density in Australia matter?.What is Australia’s population density?.