Waterloo, New South Wales, 2017

Population: 8,508
Established: 1815
Postcode: 2017
Area: 1.1 km sq (0.4 sq mi)
Location: 4 km (2 mi) south of Sydney CBD
LGA: City of Sydney
State District: Heffron
Federal Division: Sydney

Waterloo is an inner-city suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Waterloo is located 4 kilometres south of the Sydney central business district and is part of the local government area of the City of Sydney.

History

Waterloo took its name from the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, when Allied and Prussian forces under the Duke of Wellington and Blucher defeated the French forces under Napoleon Bonaparte.

In the 1820s Waterloo began supporting industrial operations including the Fisher and Duncan Paper Mill and the Waterloo Flour Mills owned by William Hutchinson and Daniel Cooper. William Hutchinson, superindendent of convicts and public works, had been granted 1,400 acres (5.7 km²) of land in 1823. He sold Waterloo Farm to Daniel Cooper (1785-1853) and Solomon Levey (1794-1833). Cooper later bought out Levey's share and on his death the Waterloo Estate passed onto his son, also named Daniel Cooper, who was the first speaker of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly.

Location

Waterloo has been a relatively poor area, until recent times. It is still dominated by public housing estates for those on low-incomes, which were built in the second half of the 20th century by the New South Wales Department of Housing. Today, despite some social problems in some parts of the suburb, Waterloo is undergoing gentrification with a rising business district focusing on technology-oriented firms and the development of more green space such as parks. By 2006, median individual income in Waterloo was slightly higher than the Australian average.

Population

According to the 2006 census, Waterloo has a population of 11,122 people, with indigenous people making up 3.4% of the population (higher than the national average). 43.3% of the population was born overseas. English was primarily spoken at home by 48.8% of the population, with the most important other languages being Chinese languages (10.0%), Russian (5.9%) and Indonesian (2.8%). The largest religions were Catholicism (22.4% of the population), Anglicanism (10.0%), Buddhism (5.7%) and Eastern Orthodoxy (3.7%). Furthermore, 19.7% of the population identified with no religion/atheism, slightly above the national average. 47.0% of the population lived in public housing, and the unemployment rate was 16.6%, significantly higher than the national average.

Source: wikipedia.org