Liverpool, New South Wales, Australia

🇦🇺 Liverpool is a suburb of Greater Western Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is located approximately 31 km (19 mi) south-west of the Sydney CBD. Liverpool is the administrative seat of the local government area of the City of Liverpool and is situated in the Cumberland Plain.

History Liverpool is one of the oldest urban settlements in Australia, founded on 7 November 1810 as an agricultural centre by Governor Lachlan Macquarie. He named it after Robert Banks Jenkinson, Earl of Liverpool, who was then the Secretary of State for the Colonies and the English city of Liverpool, upon which some of the area's architecture is based.

The Post Office opened at Liverpool on 1 March 1825 - one of the first Post Offices to be opened in New South Wales. Liverpool was one of the six stations on the first line of Telegraphs to be constructed in this Colony. On 26 January 1858, a Telegraph Office was opened at the Railway Station. Later, on 12 July 1878, these two offices were amalgamated and plans proposed to construct a joint office. Finally a Foundation Stone was laid prior to construction starting. Mrs. N. G. Bull of Cabramatta had the honor of laying the Stone - such a responsibility given to a woman bringing great indignation by the Mayor and several of the leading men. An Indignation Meeting held soon after confirmed unanimously that Mrs Bull was "a fit and proper person" to have laid the stone.

Liverpool is at the head of navigation of the Georges River and combined with the Great Southern Railway from Sydney to Melbourne reaching Liverpool in the late 1850s, Liverpool became a major agricultural and transportation centre as the land in the district was very productive.

Until the 1950s, Liverpool was still a satellite town with an agricultural economy based on poultry farming and market gardening. However the urban sprawl of Sydney across the Cumberland Plain soon reached Liverpool, and it became an outer suburb of metropolitan Sydney with a strong working-class presence and manufacturing facilities. The Liverpool area also became renowned for its vast Housing Commission estates housing thousands of low-income families after the slum clearance and urban renewal programs in inner-city Sydney in the 1960s.

Heritage listings Liverpool has a number of heritage-listed sites, including: • 251 Bigge Street: Liverpool Courthouse • Birkdale Crescent: Collingwood • College Street: Old Liverpool Hospital • Elizabeth Drive: St Luke's Anglican Church • Georges River, Heathcote Road near Newbridge Road: Liverpool Weir • Great Southern railway: Liverpool railway station • 17 Speed Street: Rosebank.

Geography The Cooks River/Castlereagh Ironbark ecological community and Cumberland Plain Woodland are the indigenous flora community of the area, which are found in remnants within the suburb.

Commercial area Liverpool is currently the major city centre in South Western Sydney. The city centre has a Hoddle Grid layout with many little laneways and arcades, similar to that of Melbourne. The central retail strip is Macquarie Street which contains numerous small cafes. In recent times the extension of the Westfield shopping centre has seen many new fashion stores come in. The Central Business District is being touted as Sydney's Third CBD centred around the Western Sydney Airport and aerotropolis. The CBD was rezoned for mixed use in 2018 to allow for more homes, offices and shops.

The main shopping area is centred on Macquarie Street, with Westfield Liverpool, a major shopping centre at the northern end. Liverpool Plaza is a shopping mall located between Macquarie Mall & Northumberland Street. The northern end of the city has been zoned for high density residential apartments. The southern end of the city is zoned for high density commercial developments. Liverpool has a large teaching hospital, two technical colleges and many shopping centres and office buildings. The private hospital operator Healthscope owns the Sydney Southwest Private Hospital in Liverpool.

Transport Liverpool is well served by roads such as the Hume Highway (also known as Liverpool Road), the M5 Motorway, the Westlink M7 Motorway.

Liverpool railway station has services to the Sydney CBD, Leppington, Parramatta and Schofields. The Liverpool to Parramatta transitway provides a bus-only route for buses.

For details of long distance and local bus services see Liverpool station.

Schools and places of worship There are three public primary schools within the suburb of Liverpool: Liverpool Public School, Liverpool West and Marsden Road. Liverpool Boys and Liverpool Girls are the two public secondary schools. The Mainsbridge School caters to children with intellectual disabilities and Liverpool Hospital School for children hospitalized for lengthy periods.

Private schools include All Saints Primary School, All Saints Catholic College and Al Amanah College.

Post secondary education is catered to with the South Western College of TAFE, Macarthur Community College, Liverpool U3A: School for Seniors, University of Western Sydney English Language Centre, School of Arts in Macquarie Street, and The University Of Wollongong.

St Luke's Anglican Church, located in the city centre across the road from Westfield Liverpool, is the oldest existing Anglican church in Australia. All Saints Catholic Church in George St is located with the All Saints schools. St Raphael, Nickolas and Irene Greek Orthodox Church is in Forbes Street and the Serbian Orthodox Church of the Apostle Luke is on Flowerdale Rd.

Parks There are many open spaces within the city centre, including botanical parks and sporting facilities. Bigge Park on the east side of the city features a War Memorial while Pioneer Memorial Park to the north has a historical cemetery. Woodward Park to the west is the main sporting precinct containing a number of outdoor playing fields and the Whitlam Leisure Centre, hosting a swimming pool and a 3000-seat indoor sports stadium. Other notable sports facilities within the suburb of Liverpool include Collimore Park (netball) and Paciullo Park (soccer and touch football).

Sporting teams Prominent local teams include Fairfield-Liverpool Cricket Club which plays in the Sydney Grade Cricket competition, Liverpool City Netball, which has participated successfully in many State and representative competitions, Hinchinbrook Hornets Junior Rugby League and FC Bossy Liverpool which plays in the New South Wales Super League and Liverpool Rangers FC which is located at Ireland Park, Memorial Avenue. The West Sydney Razorbacks basketball team used to play out of the Gough Whitlam Centre while they were in the NBL. Liverpool is also home to Australian Ice Hockey League team the Sydney Ice Dogs who play out of the Liverpool Catholic Club Ice Rink and Liverpool little athletics.

Media Liverpool has an arts and creation centre which provides music lessons with instruments such as:guitar, drums and banjo etc.

Liverpool is currently served by a full-time radio station 89.3FM 2GLF which broadcasts local information, music and ethnic programming. It is one of the first FM radio stations setup in the early '80s.

Liverpool has had several newspapers since the late 1800s. The first newspaper appeared in Liverpool in 1886 was The Liverpool Times which was soon superseded by The Liverpool Mercury. Both of these newspapers were then incorporated with The Liverpool Herald. There was also the free newspaper The Liverpool News that ran from 1904 to about 1973. Liverpool now has two newspapers, The Liverpool Leader and The Liverpool Champion published every Wednesday.

Demographics Liverpool has a population from a wide variety of ethnic backgrounds; less than one-third (31.1%) of residents were born in Australia. The next most common countries of birth were Lebanon (10.9%), India (6.4%), Fiji (2.9%), Vietnam (2.5%) and Croatia (2.4%). The most popular ethnic responses were Indian (8.4%), Australian (7.9%), English (7.0%), Iraqi (6.5%) and Serbian (6.3%).

22.2% of people only spoke English at home. Other languages spoken at home included Arabic 18.1%, Serbian 7.4%, Hindi 3.9%, Vietnamese 3.5% and Spanish 2.2%.

Liverpool is remarkable for the high proportion of people who reported following some religion in the Census; only 8.8% stated that they had no religion, much lower than the national average of 22.3%. This Census question is optional and 14.9% of residents did not respond to it, which introduces some uncertainty into all the religious figures. The most common responses for religion were Catholic 17.3, Islam 14.8% and "Miscellaneous Religions" 8.9%.

The age distribution is just a little younger than the rest of the country: the median age of Liverpool residents was 34 years (national median is 37). Children aged 0–14 years made up 21.0% of the population (19.3% nationally) and people aged 65 years and over made up 11.9%% of the population (14.0% nationally).

Over half (57.8%) the dwellings in Liverpool were apartments and 55.9% were being rented, which is significantly higher than the national average of 29.6%.