Inner West property

Before the First Fleet came, the Darug people lived across the Sydney region. Their nation was divided into Aboriginal clans, each tied to a particular area and numbering about 50 to 100 people. Men married women from other clans, so the groups were related, and members of one clan often travelled through the country of others to hunt, trade and hold ceremonies. They did not see themselves as owners of the land but as its custodians.

Two clans lived in what is now the Inner West. The Cadigal held land along the Port Jackson shore from South Head to Lewisham, and the Wangal held the country immediately west of them, reaching to about Homebush Bay. Other clans visited regularly, among them groups from what is now the Eastern Suburbs, from the Cooks River area to the south, from the Parramatta area to the west, and from the northern shore of the Parramatta River.

Land in the area was granted from the late 18th century onwards. By 1814 a stage coach ran between Sydney and Parramatta, and on to Richmond. Settlements grew along that route, now Parramatta Road. Some of the large grants were later divided for commercial and residential development, among them Ashfield Park in 1838.

The Main Suburban railway line was built in 1855 and growth followed, particularly around the earliest stations at Newtown, Ashfield, Burwood and Homebush. In the decades after the railway arrived more grants were divided, one being the Village of Homebush in 1878. Wealthy colonists built large houses in the "outer" districts of the Inner West: the family behind the Arnott biscuit business and the family of the retailer David Jones both had homes in Strathfield.

As the population grew, local governments formed across the area: Newtown's municipality in 1862, then Petersham, Leichhardt and Ashfield in 1871, Burwood in 1874, Concord in 1883 and Strathfield in 1885. Sydney's tram network spread into the Inner West in the last quarter of the 19th century and into the early 20th, reaching almost all of the area, as far out as Cabarita, Enfield and Canterbury. In 1895 a branch line was built from the Illawarra railway line at Sydenham, giving southern suburbs including Marrickville and Dulwich Hill a rail link.

Its central position and its access by water, rail and road brought large scale industry to the Inner West during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Some large houses were turned to industrial use: Arthur Renwick's Abbotsford House became a chocolate factory for Nestlé, and Roland Ducker's Strathroy at Cabarita became a paint works for British Australian Lead Manufacturers, later Dulux.

The residential suburbs stayed popular at the same time. Several Australian prime ministers lived in the Inner West in this period. A number of the high quality residential developments built just after Federation are highly regarded and heritage protected, among them the large "garden suburb" at Haberfield, begun in 1901, the smaller Malvern Hill Estate at Croydon, begun in 1909, and the Hoskins Estate at Appian Way in Burwood, begun in 1903. Between the wars, suburbanisation accelerated: outer suburbs such as Strathfield, Burwood and Concord grew in prestige, while denser inner suburbs fell away, Newtown, Enmore and Erskineville among them.

After World War II, migration brought large numbers of people to Australia, and many settled in the Inner West, mostly from European countries. Industrial jobs, closeness to the city and good public transport drew them. Shops, cafes and restaurants reflecting different origins gave the commercial centres a cosmopolitan character: Haberfield and Leichhardt became known for their concentration of Italian businesses, and Petersham was the centre of Sydney's Portuguese community.

Industry kept expanding and blue collar workers kept arriving, many of them European immigrants, and the gap between the suburbs widened. Settlement moved further west once the White Australia Policy ended and the mix of migrants to Australia changed: Ashfield drew Chinese immigrants, many of them from Shanghai, and became known as "Little Shanghai", while Burwood became a home for Chinese immigrants and overseas students.

In the inner suburbs such as Newtown, alternative cultures spread towards the end of the 20th century, and a wave of gentrification followed. Along the foreshore and in the outer parts of the Inner West, industrial sites returned to housing: the soap factories of Lever Brothers and Colgate-Palmolive in Balmain were turned into apartments, Abbotsford House and Strathroy House were restored for residential use, and the flour mills that had long dominated the skyline at Summer Hill were redeveloped. By 2017 the spread of highly valued suburbs had reached further east, covering both the popular "outer" parts of the Inner West and the waterfront suburbs that were once industrial and have since gentrified.

The Inner West covers much more ground than the Inner West Council area, and its extent roughly follows the old parishes of Petersham and Concord, cadastral divisions once used for land titles. Its western edge lies near the A3 arterial road, Homebush Bay Drive and Centenary Drive, which separates the area from Greater Western Sydney. Parramatta River widens through a series of bays on its way to becoming Sydney Harbour, the largest being Homebush Bay, Iron Cove and Hen and Chicken Bay. Those bays had a significant effect on how the area developed and on where roads and railways went.

Between the two rivers the land is rolling hills cut by shallow valleys, with creeks and canals running to each river: Johnstons Creek, Whites Creek, Iron Cove Creek and Hawthorne Canal, once called Long Cove Creek. Concrete lining has changed them drastically since the late 19th century. Iron Cove Creek ran freely in the 1860s and widened in places into ponds used as swimming holes; it is now barely a trickle beside residential areas, parkland and fast-food restaurants.