[Docere]

Didn't catch this news when it came out.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...-populous-city

I find this Sydney-Melbourne zigzag fascinating. Sydney was older but Melbourne was the larger city for most of the 19th century. Sydney reached 50,000 first, but Melbourne reached 100,000 first due to the gold rush. Then Sydney pulled ahead around the turn of the 20th century. But Melbourne is faster growing today and since the mid-19th century they've always been pretty close in size.

It's not like Toronto/Montreal where Toronto eventually pulled ahead and never looked back.

19th century populations:

1851

Sydney 53,924
Melbourne 23,143

1861

Melbourne 139,916
Sydney 95,789

1871

Melbourne 206,780
Sydney 137,776

1881

Melbourne 282,947
Sydney 224,939

1891

Melbourne 490,896
Sydney 383,283

Metropolitan populations, going back to 1901 (2021 is prior to the update).

1901

Sydney 481,117
Melbourne 480,279

1911

Sydney 629,503
Melbourne 582,275

1921

Sydney 899,059
Melbourne 766,465

1933

Sydney 1,235,267
Melbourne 983,173

1947

Sydney 1,626,083
Melbourne 1,275,525

1954

Sydney 1,863,217
Melbourne 1,524,062

1961

Sydney 2,183,231
Melbourne 1,911,895

1971

Sydney 2,807,828
Melbourne 2,436,335

1981

Sydney 3,204,696
Melbourne 2,806,000

1991

Sydney 3,672,855
Melbourne 3,156,700

2001

Sydney 4,128,272
Melbourne 3,366,542

2011

Sydney 4,627,345
Melbourne 3,999,982

2021

Sydney 5,231,147
Melbourne 4,917,750