Population History, Density and Growth Statistics
| Melbourne population by year |
||
|---|---|---|
| 1836 | 177 | |
| 1854 | 123,000 | (gold rush) |
| 1880 | 280,000 | (property boom) |
| 1956 | 1,500,000 | |
| 1981 | 2,806,000 | |
| 1991 | 3,156,700 | (economic slump) |
| 2001 | 3,366,542 | |
| 2006 | 3,744,373 | |
| 2010 | 4,077,036 | (Estimate) |
| 2026 | 5,038,100 | (Projected) |
| 2056 | 6,789,200 | (Projected) |
| Melbourne urban area density (people/ha) |
||
|---|---|---|
| 1951 | 23.4 | |
| 1961 | 21.4 | |
| 1971 | 18.1 | |
| 1981 | 15.9 | |
| 1986 | 16.05 | |
| 1991 | 16.8 | |
| 1996 | 17.9 | |
| 1999 | 17.05 | |
| 2001 | 15.9 | |
Although Victoria's net interstate migration has fluctuated, the Melbourne statistical division has grown by approximately 50,000 people a year since 2003. Melbourne has now attracted the largest proportion of international overseas immigrants (48,000) finding it outpacing Sydney's international migrant intake, along with having strong interstate migration from Sydney and other capitals due to more affordable housing and cost of living, which have been two recent key factors driving Melbourne's growth.
In recent years, Melton, Wyndham and Casey, part of the Melbourne statistical division, have recorded the highest growth rate of all local government areas in Australia. Despite a demographic study stating that Melbourne could overtake Sydney in population by 2028, the ABS has projected in two scenarios that Sydney will remain larger than Melbourne beyond 2056, albeit by a margin of less than 3% compared to a margin of 12% today. However, the first scenario projects that Melbourne's population overtakes Sydney in 2039, primarily due to larger levels of internal migration losses assumed for Sydney.
Melbourne's population density declined following the Second World War, with the private motor car and the lures of space and property ownership causing a suburban sprawl, mainly eastward. After much discussion both at general public and planning levels in the 1980s, the decline has reversed since the recession of the early 1990s.
The city has seen increased density in the inner and western suburbs. Since the 1970s, Victorian Government planning blueprints, such as Postcode 3000 and Melbourne 2030, have aimed to curtail the urban sprawl.
Read more about this topic: Demographics Of Melbourne
Famous quotes containing the words population, growth and/or statistics:
“We in the West do not refrain from childbirth because we are concerned about the population explosion or because we feel we cannot afford children, but because we do not like children.”
—Germaine Greer (b. 1939)
“This [new] period of parenting is an intense one. Never will we know such responsibility, such productive and hard work, such potential for isolation in the caretaking role and such intimacy and close involvement in the growth and development of another human being.”
—Joan Sheingold Ditzion and Dennie Palmer (20th century)
“Maybe a nation that consumes as much booze and dope as we do and has our kind of divorce statistics should pipe down about “character issues.” Either that or just go ahead and determine the presidency with three-legged races and pie-eating contests. It would make better TV.”
—P.J. (Patrick Jake)