The state capital cities have all experienced change during the Looking Back time span. To make sense of this change and meaningfully compare the cities and the impacts of their growth we need two sets of statistics; absolute and relative measures of change. This first table compares the population size and growth rate for each capital city during the period 1971-1989 using figures taken from the 1991 Australian Year Book.
Clearly the largest city is Sydney and the smallest is Darwin. During the Looking Back period, Canberra (which here includes Queanbeyan) had the highest relative growth (48%), closely followed by Darwin and Perth. Hobart and Adelaide had the lowest rates of growth, well below the national average of 25% in 18 years. In the context of the expansion of cities and landcover change, the relative rates of increase are of little value. What really matters are the absolute numbers of people. From this first table we can calculate that the total urban population growth in this period was 2, 661, 000, of which Sydney and Melbourne alone accounted for 1, 223, 000, or almost half of the total. Yet these two cities had almost the lowest growth rates. The figures from this table will help our interpretation of the space imagery by indicating the size of the urban expansion we can expect.
Population size and growth rate for each capital city during the period 1971-1989
| City | 1971 (x1000) |
1989 (x1000) |
Growth (%) |
| Sydney | 2936 | 3623 | 23 |
| Melbourne | 2503 | 3039 | 21 |
| Brisbane | 870 | 1271 | 46 |
| Adelaide | 843 | 1037 | 23 |
| Perth | 703 | 1158 | 65 |
| Hobart | 153 | 181 | 18 |
| Darwin | 39 | 73 | 87 |
| Canberra | 159 | 303 | 91 |
| Total | 8026 | 10687 | 47 |
Another useful comparison between cities is the index of city-stateness; ie. what proportion of the total state population resides in each capital city. We can rank this index nationally and examine whether it has changed over the Looking Back period.
Canberra is indisputably the city state while Hobart is the capital of the most decentralised state. Melbourne, the capital of the second most populous state, changed from rank 2 in 1971 to rank 4 in 1989 as the populations of other states, particularly Western Australia, moved into their cities. The figures in this table may help us predict the future change that can be expected for each city, while the satellite images will indicate the spatial patterns of this expected change.
Index of city-stateness
| City | 1971 (%) |
1971 rank |
1989 (%) |
1989 rank |
1989 state (x1000) |
| Sydney | 64 | 5 | 63 | 5 | 5772 |
| Melbourne | 72 | 2 | 70 | 4 | 4321 |
| Brisbane | 48 | 6 | 45 | 7 | 2834 |
| Adelaide | 72 | 2 | 73 | 2 | 1425 |
| Perth | 68 | 4 | 73 | 2 | 1595 |
| Hobart | 39 | 8 | 40 | 8 | 451 |
| Darwin | 45 | 7 | 47 | 6 | 156 |
| Canberra | 99 | 1 | 100 | 1 | 279 |
| Total | 16833 |