Bathurst

Bathurst is a regional city in the Central Tablelands of New South Wales, Australia. It is approximately 200 km west of Sydney and is the seat of the Bathurst Regional Council. Bathurst is the oldest inland settlement in Australia and has an estimated population of 34,303 people.  Bathurst City is the 29th largest population area of the 135 regional NSW population areas in 2009. Residents of Bathurst are known as “Bathurstians”.

Bathurst is often referred to as Gold Country as it was the site of the first gold discovery and where the first gold rush occurred in Australia. Today it is education, tourism and manufacturing that drive the economy. Internationally known racetrack Mount Panorama is also a landmark of the city. Bathurst has a historic city centre with many buildings remaining from the gold rush period of the mid to late 1800s.

The median age of the population is 32.9 years; this is related to the large education sector in the community and is particularly young for a regional centre (the state average is 36.4.) Population growth has reached 1.6% per annum over the five years until 2010, making Bathurst the seventh fastest growing regional city in NSW. This growth over recent years has seen the construction of new shopping centres and retail precincts, sporting facilities, housing estates and expanding industrial areas.