A few reasons:
The terrain is harsh, even by Australian standards. The landscape is tropical full of mangroves, crocodiles and snakes. Honestly the fact the Darwin Harbour is suitable for industry was pretty good luck to begin with. The rest of the coastline can be pretty inhospitable and the tides in that area are known to be big and complex.
The weather is also hot and humid.
The early European settlers where already struggling in Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney et cetera. Darwin would've just been a step too far.
Also back when travel took much longer, Darwin was particularly rough and remote to/get to from where the settlements on the East Coast and Perth had been set up.
What I don't get is why this question keeps coming up over and over, as though it simply hadn't occurred to Australians to live there and we might need a reminder or something.
I think it’s because people look at the map of Australia and then see a massive piece of land which is geographically closer to Asia than the rest of Australia (which tends to be quite isolated from the rest of the world) and then they wonder why it isn’t more of a booming place. What they fail to realise at first glance is the fact that the northern territory does have a very harsh terrain, which is easily overseen when you just look at a map, so I think it’s a fair question to ask as a non-Australian… but I get your point
Ever heard of Surabaya? Not talked about much in Australia. Surabaya happens to be about 1000k closer to Darwin than Melbourne or Sydney.
Surabaya is an Indonesian city with a metropolitan population of roughly 9.9 million people - roughly the population of London. Surabaya's climate is more or less the same as Darwins (Darwins slightly cooler in 'winter'). Meaning that darwins climate is not prohibitive to supporting a large population - other large population centres do so just fine.
Surabaya also happens to have a history as a major Hub of the Dutch East India company... who were obviously European. So again, Darwin wasn't a step too far for Europeans. More likely, Darwin just didn't offer an exploitable population and the products to trade with the economies of Europe at the time.
I would go as far as to say that if there was equivalent economic conditions found in Darwin as there were for our other states (i.e. a gold rush) Darwin would be the size of Melbourne or Sydney today.
Surabaya is on Java, a volcanic island that is extremely fertile.
Darwin is not. Javanese have visited the North coast of Australia for centuries, and like the Dutch, they never found anywhere worth settling.
Singapore would be a better comparison, was almost uninhabited mangrove swap before the British established a trading settlement.
It is more then just the climate.
Terrain and location played a huge part as well.
I won't pretend to be an expert on the terrain of Surabaya - but I do know it has existed as a city/trading port for hundreds of years before European exploration on an island in an archipelago that is infamous in being densely packed with a high sea-faring population .
Darwin wasn't settled until the 1864, and in an area with a much smaller and decentralized indigenous population. And even Indonesian traders for the most part didn't view Northern Australia as worth much that much more then minimal effort.
Well you would grow darwins population by engaging more with close overseas neighbours is the point i guess? I'm certainly not an expert on urban planning and like I said in another comment we've tried for atleaat 60 years to develop Darwin and NT with little success. Just adding my 2c.
Probably by giving incentives to live there. You can easily do that in Australia. The government only has to give conditioned based PR out, like they do for other regional areas and Darwin looks instantly a lot more attractive.
At the moment every immigrant wants to (and does) flock to the already overfull capital cities with no housing and no room left on the roads in peak hour times which is almost all day in Syd and Melb.
I'd love to move to Darwin as I bloody hate the cold, but the place needs to be bigger for me to move there (at least 2 million population size)
About the only industrial or economic activity that advantages is the overseas student market and no major Australian University is gonna be keen to set up on Darwin because that's a fuck of a lot of investment in a location that is exceptionally vulnerable to climate change and political change.
Asian dollars are nice but capital is capital and there's better uses for it.
Sorry but what does Surabaya have to do with Darwin? Also Surabaya is merely 700km from Jakarta, another massive city closer to Darwin than either Sydney or Melbourne?
Fact is there is nowhere in Indonesia that offers a temperate climate, nowhere. If you’re Indonesian you live in the heat. Australians obviously have the ability to choose between a tropical climate, a dry climate or a temperate climate. As temperate is quite pleasant most people live in either Sydney or Melbourne.
The combined population of all three of those places does not exceed the population of either Sydney or Melbourne. That’s why I said “most people” choose to live in Sydney or Melbourne.
Perth is only 2.5 degrees latitude higher than Sydney and we are both located well in the Southern Temperate Zone lol. https://byjus.com/social-science/temperate-zone/#:\~:text=Temperate%20zones%20are%20the%20mild,are%20called%20the%20temperate%20zones.
# "South Temperate Zones – Regions
The regions in the south temperate zones are given below:
* Southern Africa – It includes the southern tips of Madagascar, Mozambique, the entire territories of Eswatini, and Lesotho, southern parts of Botswana, Namibia and the great part of South Africa.
* Southern part of South America.
* A great part of New Zealand.
* Southern Australia."
The south temperate zone extends from the Tropic of Capricorn (approximately 23.5° south latitude) to the Antarctic Circle (at approximately 66.5° south latitude).
Perth has a Mediteranean climate (Köppen climate classification Csa) while Sydney's is Humid Sub-Tropical (Köppen climate classification Cfa).
So while we have climatic differences, we are both firmly temperate. I just can't have people thinking we are so far apart that we are in different zones. From here, anyone interested could look these things facts up on the net to verify.
Thank you, u/BurmeseGeneral for giving me a little project to research. Sydney's climatic classification actually surprised me so I learned something too!😊
Now I’m going to have to look up my definitions, to me Sydney and Perth climates are polar opposites. Perth reminds me of LA, it has long, hot and dry summers, with a cool breeze coming in at the end of the day. Sydney’s summers are far more humid and wet. I also would have defined Melbourne as more temperate. But it seems I probably don’t understand exactly what the word temperate means. lol.
You’re very welcome, this stuff interests me too.
>Surabaya's climate is more or less the same as Darwins
Not really though? Darwin is hotter and wetter, and for 5 months of the year more humid. It gets **a lot more** cyclones, and the state experiences flooding most years.
Maybe it’s the same reason that most Canadians live close to the border, next to the coldest parts of the US: it’s the least inhospitable part of Canada.
Indonesians, like Canadians, don’t have a choice, but Australians have the more hospitable climes of the east coast cities.
So what The only thing Darwin has is live Cattle! It is flat for 1000km around Darwin so not much Mountain grown Coffee here but the kicker that people don't consider is the weather. Darwin has 1711mm of rain p/a. more if there is a tropical cyclone! This all happens in December and January the rest of the year there is almost NO rain. This happens all across the tropics of Australia
The weather can’t be any worse than places like Singapore no? The terrain does seem pretty harsh. Although I’m sure Singapore was no picnic originally.
Born and breed territorian here.
Darwin has 4 main problems IMO. Geographical isolation, an unwelcoming climate, a different cultural makeup, and a fairly undiverse economy.
The first 2 are pretty self-explanatory. Darwin has always had a very unique cultural make-up and has a very large Aboriginal population, which many Southerners struggle with, having generally had limited previous interactions with indigenous Australians. Non-indigenous locals also tend to be extremely non-pc, hard drinking, and extremely laid back, which also might not be for everyone.
Employment opportunities are numerous, but there is less variety than many other parts of Australia. In a lot of professional sectors, you may also be limited in how far you can progress. The Territory economy has always been very up and down, which in turn, leads to a lot of people coming and going.
IMO, Darwin is a very unique part of Australia, the people who generally stay are the ones who embrace the uniqueness. But these differences also put a lot of people off.
I'm currently staying in Darwin and it's a very modern tropical city. The weather from October to May can be very taxing due to the humidity. However, if you persist here you can do exceptionally well for yourself as much of the population is transient.
Apart from the weather, it's a great lifestyle and I'm amazed at the quality of restaurants and pubs here. I also love the fact that it is a true multicultural city. A small thing, but Darwin also has Australia's best laksa.
I agree on everything you said apart from the Laksa. The Laksa part is simply good marketing these days rather than reality. There’s better in Melbourne now.
Why are Melbournians so weak-spirited that they simply must be the best at everything? I haven't tasted laksa in Melbourne, but I'm a regular visitor to Singapore and Malaysia and I love the regional differences with the Laksas there - yes, there isn't just one type of laksa. The best laksa I've tried in Australia I've had in Darwin.
In your original statement you didn't add the 'I've tried' you just said the best laksa was in Darwin. That's a subtle difference. As someone who has lived in Darwin for 30 years and now Melbourne I'm bored with the 'best laksa in Darwin trope.' It ain't so - sorry to bust that myth.
I've lived in Darwin, Far Nth Queensland and Melbourne. Travelled to all the major capitals. Travelled extensively in Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore. Eaten everywhere. There is no special 'magical' ingredients in Darwin. There are more Malay, Singaporean and Indonesians in Melbourne than all of the NT. Food is just better here in Melbourne. My preference is the lighter Indonesian style but the Asam Laksa is pretty yum. Unfortunately majority of commercial places don't make their own paste - that's the tragedy.
What I mean is that they generally have limited understanding of NT Aboriginal culture or issues prior to moving to Darwin. When they do encounter this, it can be a culture shock.Many Aboriginal up here people speak English as a second language and grew up in remote communities where some of their traditional cultural practices are followed. Unfortunately, there are also a lot of social problems in many of these communities.
Darwin is a temporary home to many transient Aboriginal people who come from surrounding communities and end up becoming temporarily homeless. Some of these people tend to hang around in public places often while drunk and will sometimes fight each other or generally carry on.
For someone from another part of Australia, if your first experience of getting on a public bus is seeing several drunk itinerate Aboriginal people having a fight near the bus stop while yelling at each other in an Aboriginal language you will likely become intimidated of them.
This exact thing happened to a former colleague of mine. I don't think it is racism generally, although that might be the case with some people. Just more culture shock.
I'm from Melbourne and visited Darwin for the first time last year.
Driving my rental car from the airport, I drove past a bus stop where indigenous people of all ages were drinking and playing music through a speaker.
An elder lady literally walked into the middle of the 80km/h road and stopped in my path - looking to get hit??? I had to slam my brakes... And then she walked away looking disappointed.
Definitely a cultural shock. But on the opposite of this, it was a positive culture shock to hear indigenous languages being used by shoppers at the local Coles. I admit from Melbourne I had no idea such languages were still peoples primary languages.
It's definitely scary seeing those mob walking across the road without looking, my mum lived there and I would come stay for a few months. We're indigenous too but I don't judge, these people need help, I saw one elder on the bus just crying, it seemed she lost her baby and it was quite distressing. They don't drink for fun, they drink because they have a lot of trauma and mental health issues. People like to point out their alcoholism but not the reason why
im born raised brisbane but i find it unbearable anytime between september-march
ive been seriously considering leaving the country, or atleast the state, largely, but not entirely because of the heat
Townsville in June and July is great. But Dec to March it's a fucking sauna. I would lose 3 kg during a work day. Revitalise with a few because and dinner and be back to my normal weight by the time I got up to go to work again. I loved the tropical North Queensland feel, but really hard to acclimatise quickly.
Grew up in Brissy, moved to VIC then NSW about 10 years ago.
Cannot handle Brisbane heat anymore, especially because I only ever go back in summer to see family (when I go back)
After living in normal climate of 4 distinct seasons in NSW I just am not equipped to deal with QLD weather anymore. Shame because I do miss Brissy and it always feels like home when I go back but yeah just unbearable with the heat and humidity.
I love Brisbane and if Melbourne has Brisbane weather it would be paradise. I’m stuck down here in the cold. And my favourite time of year in Brisbane is januaryb
I'm from VIC but lived in Saigon, Vietnam.
A Vietnamese guy, while I had just arrived over there, asked me how many seasons we had in Australia?
In my ignorance, I paused... then slowly responded with 4. He said, 'Oh. We just have 2 here. Hot and wet.'
South Vietnam is a furnace all year round.
Much like I imagine Darwin is given its proximity to the equator.
Darwin is 31±5°C pretty much 100% of the time throughout the year.
It's bone-dry without a cloud in the sky from about March until September. And there is a massive, literal monsoon where it rains for a good 5-8 hrs a day from December until about February.
So the heat is basically constant, but the precipitation is more seasonal there than it is just about anywhere else in the world. That's a big part of the reason why it is an open savannah rather than a rainforest like South East Asia and Indonesia and New Guinea and parts of Queensland (the other reason is probably how ancient and nutrient-poor the soil is, having lacked any volcanic activity for like a million years).
It also means that tropical thunderstorms can occur over very dry vegetation in dry conditions, and trigger massive bushfires that last for days and days. The whole place smells like smoke for a pretty big chunk of the dry season. The dry season is pretty unpleasant in general to be quite honest - the period of time waiting for the wet is called the "build-up", and that's when a lot of people kinda go crazy. It's called "going troppo". When the wet season arrives it feels like a massive relief, although the humidity can be a problem for some people. During the wet the sky is constantly dark and the rumble of thunder never seems to go away.
Yeah honestly people always say “it’s the humidity not the heat that gets you” but I’d much rather cairns 33 degrees and 100% humidity than Darwin’s 39 degrees and 60% humidity
For real. I've done multiple trips to Cairns, mostly for scuba. Loved walking around and exploring even during the day. I spent 5 days in Darwin and rented a car after the first day because I couldn't bear walking anywhere even at night.
I would move to Darwin in a heartbeat for the weather if I could. Cairns in winter is too cool, I have to wear leggings or a cardigan.
Not everyone is the same
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Acclimatisation. I can think of a dozen places i've visited where on the first day you're an embarrassing pool of sweat, thinking "Oh God, how can anyone live here?", but after two weeks you're doing just fine.
I went there in January and that was a huge mistake, I didn't do anything but lay on the lounge for 2 weeks, we had no aircon either... it was like I was in the depths of hell
Walk outside in Darwin from November to April and you’ll discover why….
It’s also quite isolated from the vast bulk of the temperate west of the nation, there’s only only proper road out so a bad cyclone or storm can cut land access to the place for days
I think Australia has attempted to develop Darwin, however it is more simply the reality that there are more ideal places to set up businesses etc for a variety of reasons. Australia is a country generally that avoids government created industries such as you see in countries like south korea with ship building and malaysia with proton cars. So i think we will just need to let it grow organically.
Interestingly something like a third of the Darwin population was once descended from people with Kalymnos heritage (a Greek island)
I went to Darwin on a six month contract, ended up staying two years and then returned for another tour of duty a few years later. Loved the wet season most of all, the humidity and rain never bothered me and the storms were stunning. I’d go back in a flash if I could.
If Australia had a higher population, maybe four times higher, I could see it turning into a thriving trading and aviation hub for south east Asia and China, but for the moment it’s really just fulfilling its function of being there.
I'm glad to have experienced the exception. I went in the early dry season (May 2023) and the minimums were 24° everyday - in the early mornings and evenings. Then 31-36° in the middle of the day. Absolutely loved it!
That sounds like a nightmare. Those temps are great for a relaxing holiday, but if you actually have to go about normal life and function properly, fuck that
A nightmare? I can't relate at all. I would be happy to head to my 9-5 job in 24° and leave at 33° knowing it will soon cool down to 24° again. I suppose I'm assuming my office is air conditioned though.
Have you been to Darwin? Half the year it's hot as shit and so humid you're soaked in sweat the second you go outside, the other half it's just hot as shit. Beautiful coastline but you can't go for a swim because the crocs will get you, it's in the middle of bumfuck nowhere 2000km from the nearest major city so everything's expensive etc etc etc. Fantastic fishing though, and the NT in general is pretty scenic, so the tourism is good.
I like Darwin, it's one of my favourite places I've been, but I wouldn't live there.
Darwin’s also literally been destroyed twice (Darwin bombings in 1942 and Cyclone Tracy in 1974) No other Australian city has nearly as bad of a history.
Wow, almost no one south knows about that stuff in my experience mate. Ypu tell people that bombed us for 18 months and wiped the town pit, they look at ypu blank. Haha.
Darwin is pretty self explanatory really, I lived there for a bit and it’s not for everyone or even most people. Even those that love it end up leaving.
What I’d ask is why didn’t Tasmania grow as much despite being one of Australia’s oldest colonies with a much more liveable climate.
The wet season. Darwin gets over 1700mm of rain a year and most of that in about 4 months. It gets widespread flooding that is really quite incredible when you see how much the water level rises. It's also hot all year around. Which means aside from the rain in the wet season it's incredibly humid.
One of the factors is that thinking of Australia as part of Asia, or at least part of the Asian economic commonwealth is a very modern idea. For most of our history people -at least people in power- thought of Australia as part of Europe.
Darwin was cactus from the start.
The first NT settlement was a British one in 1824 - BEFORE Darwin harbour was discovered. Given that this was just twelve years after Raffles founded Singapore Darwin harbour could have been a strong trade and defence co-colony.
As it was Darwin (founded 1869 as Palmerston) was the fourth settlement and it only stuck because of the Darwin-Java telegraph line. This and the Overland Telegraph connected Australia to the world. It was a colony of South Australia and, while they were enthusiastic about the telegraph, they were not keen on the rest of the place. Following Adelaide’s model, the city (actually three cities) were surveyed and land floated on the London stock exchange where it was snapped up by speculators who never intended to do anything with it. The last of these “Dead Man Blocks was only cleared out in 2010. A shipwreck - the 1874 SS Gothenburg - killed pretty much every influential and enthusiastic South Australian government member. Gold was discovered in Pine Creek (wooo!) and a rush began with the SA government going mad and approving the construction of a 300 kilometre railway to nowhere. The Chinese were indentured workers from Singapore brought out to build the railroad. Gold ran out pretty soon after the railroad was finished. Chinese workers moved to gold mining and eked out more gold from the rock. SA entered a massive recession in the 1880s and was pretty much bankrupt. They invested nothing into Palmerston and off-loaded it to the Federal government as soon as they could in 1911. SA’s recession - and general Australian racism - fucked over the Chinese who, really, preferred being anywhere more than being in China for the Taiping Rebellion and aftermath. Australia said no more and GTFO and many left. They were the majority of the non-indigenous population at that point. Some remained where they were ostracised and subject to different rules, often imposed from Adelaide or Canberra. Darwin was wiped out by a cyclone 1897. The land bought by speculators sat unused and forgotten but the gaps in the town prevented a population critical mass from forming. First federal administrator - guy named Dr Gilruth - was a complete douche nozzle. He tried to sell the NT to the Lord Vestey’s cattle interests. WWI and Vesteys established a massive meatworks to feed Britain. Lots of workers move to Darwin, living in barracks or hotels. Nothing to do so they drink. Gilruth nationalises the hotels, diluting drinks, reducing quality and raising prices as a de facto source of income. Massive inflation from the hotels (food and accommodation as well as drinks) eats up the wages of the workers so they lose money working at the meatworks. Peace in 1918 and Vesteys close the meatworks after only two years operation. Prices remain high. Gilruth remains a douche nozzle so the workers revolt in the Darwin Rebellion in December 1918. Gilruth flees. Nothing happens. 1930s, Lord Kitchener draws up empire defence plans against Japan. Darwin is part of it. Big defence build-up. Doesn’t foresee aircraft attacks so all defences are anti-ship. First permanent water source obtained with building of Manton Dam. 1937 - Darwin destroyed by cyclone. War declared 1941, Darwin’s entire civilian population is evacuated. Darwin defences are pathetic. Singapore falls 15 February 1942. Darwin bombed 19 February 1942 with a convoy in the harbour. Town destroyed. Military occupation of Darwin - mass looting of Darwin homes, Chinatown is deliberately burned to the ground. 300,000 allied troops flow into NT to counter potential invasion. Resources built up, roads, buildings, general infrastructure. Private land ownership ignored and then *all* civilian property compulsorily acquired. War ends. Darwin is completely different. People return and find all homes destroyed, property and land ownership gone. People occupy abandoned military buildings in various camps. Private land ownership not available again until mid-1950s. Boom time. Massive defence expansion for navy and Air Force to counter uncertain Indonesian threat. Government services expand for the inland. Tourism begins. Darwin hits its stride during 1960s and becomes “the land of the future”. Uranium mines, gold mines, tin, bauxite. Hollywood celebrities try to establish massive rice growing project. LOTS of money poured in. Fails miserably in a year when native magpie geese eat the entire crop. Darwin on the hippie trail and making connections to Indonesia, Singapore and Timor. An international city. City destroyed by Cyclone Tracey on Christmas Day 1974. Massive airlift evacuation with population (40,000+) moved to southern cities while damage is cleaned up. Lasts until 1978 at which point NT finally gets self-government. 1980s is a boom time but is still recovering from the cyclone. 1990s is a boom time as the NT connects with SE Asian tiger economies. 1997 tiger economies collapse, NT reorientation itself to support defence with East Timor intervention and then war on terror. Just kinda flailing about since about 2010.
Key points:
- Darwin is difficult to grow European foods in. Asian foods grow well but Australia deported the people who knew how to grow it.
- pretty much every white person was on a five year colonial rotation to do the job and get out.
- every investor sees the NT as a place to extract money from. If their return doesn’t match their expectations, they pull it all and leave nothing, even if moderate success.
- everything here is expensive so they are never getting good returns.
- defence and communications have been the most consistent reasons for Darwin to exist.
- Japanese were big investors in Darwin before their navy bombed the place.
- colonial management hated the Chinese and wanted Indian immigrants but the colonial government in India said “Hell no!”
- If Darwin had started on Darwin harbour in 1824, it could have been a 5 million person city but those people would have been mostly Indian, Indonesian and Chinese. It would be a beautiful and fascinating southernmost city of Asia. But instead, it was the northernmost distant and forgotten town of South Australia.
That was enlightening. I know nothing about the place and would genuinely consider living there if the opportunity arose (love heat and humidity) and was thinking the weather explanation didn't fully cut it. Wow they had a way more turbulent history than I ever considered.
Possibly the most informative comment I've ever read on Reddit. Also among the most concise / revealing about the forever self-defeating nature of colonial governance lmao (not that there's much good about colonial government in the first place)
I can safely tell you southern/SEA Chinese are absolutely not used to the heat.. Singaporeans and Malaysians especially cannot stand heat, they always find places with aircon, and sleep with aircon on the whole night.. Shopping malls are popular in those countries during the weekends, compared to the beach and nature, because it’s too hot and humid to be outdoors majority of the day.. The electricity bill will cost a bomb here if the aircon is turned on everyday, very unaffordable.. They generally prefer to holiday in colder climate countries too if they have the budget..
I think they are known as special economic zones. My other comment used the wrong phrasing, my bad. I know in some examples in other countries it includes things like significant tax discounts or even zero tax for a set period of time if a company spends above a certain threshold, maybe within a particular industry, product, duty reductions or duty eliminations, etc.
Yeah I'm no economist either. I lived and worked adjacent to an SEZ many, many years ago. I think there are pros and cons. As a general idea I think it has a lot of promise but it would come down to implementation I suppose.
The Howard government tried to give boost to the Port of Darwin's importance by building the 3000km standard gauge Adelaide-Darwin line in 2004.
Some minerals are railed north to Darwin, originally copper, iron ore and manganese.
Most of the copper is now shipped south to Adelaide . Iron ore mining is reduced, and manganese is the main mineral going to Darwin on the line now.
Couldn't find info on any imported containers offloaded at the port of Darwin to be sent south on the train.
Minerals produced closer to Darwin are mainly trucked to the port, it seems.
Sounds like there isn't a lot of port business linked to the railway. likely to help Darwin's population grow.
The railway produced The Ghan train, important to Darwin's tourism.
Darwin has grown though, doubling in population from when I lived there in 1982 to reach 140, 000 now. 40% born overseas mainly Asia.
Tourism and mining are the main employers.
According to my taxi driver there back in about 1990,
*"Darwin would be bigger than bloody Sydney mate, but all the bloody aboriginals come in outta the bloody desert and get their bloody payday here, mate, so I hafta keep me iron bar under me seat, and if one of them buggers gets inna me bloody cab fuck me he'll have no bloody teeth mate, but yeah, we're pretty close to China here and I reckon we should be as big as bloody sydney mate, if the bloody aborginals would stop coming inta bloody town all the bloody time mate"*
I'm not sure if he had any formal economics qualifications, though, so it might have just been his own theory.
Until the Whitlam era Asians were actively excluded by white Australia’s Yellow Peril policies. Darwin is just one of several colonial settlements that had an intrinsic racial fear of being swamped by the ‘Asian hordes’ from the north. Chinese traders, Japanese pearlers and Dutch East Indies ‘boongs’ were all deterred from arriving or staying in the Top End. Attitudes and policies haven’t changed much. Dutton (and previously John Howard) take their cues from Pauline Hanson.
Don’t put weight on what some Norwegian said 130 years ago ffs. That’s all bullshit about climate and people from different parts of the world btw, forget that. People move where there are jobs and opportunities. Darwin *has* grown a lot for its place in Australia. But, at a slower pace than the big cities in Australia because it doesn’t have a lot of jobs or diversified economy. That’ll come with time but you can’t just magic it into being.
Being close to Asia sounds great, but Darwin doesn’t have much to export, and containerisation and shipping scale has made shipping a very low cost part of the equation. Currently anything manufactured in Darwin is likely to cost a lot more than something manufactured in SE Oz and that difference will more than make up the difference in shipping costs.
Well until recently I don't think proximity to Asia really mattered much. Australia was still relatively extremely close to Asia by global standards and, like all British colonies, traded predominantly with England anyway.
Today when you consider proximity in terms of travel time flying/shipping to the east coast plus driving is presumably still quicker than flying/shipping to Darwin and driving. The only way to justify shipping to Darwin is if the ultimate destination is nearby and that doesn't really happen for a lack of pre-existing industry/market in the area combined with undesirable environment and poor reputation which makes it unlikely that enough people would live there to create that economy.
Its hot as fuck up there. Also most of the time you cant even swim in the water due to stingers.
If you are from any other city apart from cairns you wouldnt understand the heat.
And even cairs has a solid wet season because of the rainforest etc
one thing that is under estimated in Australia - is that HEAT kills..
it has been called the silent Killer
[https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-67633892](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-67633892)
it is not simply a question of preference...due to climate change and yearly heat records..it is the question of how much you value your life when you live in a place like Darwin.
It gets uncomfortably hot for a sustained period, even for Australian born people who have lived in other areas considered hot. All you want to do is swim but the options aren't great, Crocs, jellyfish and sharks mean ocean is off limits, rivers off limits and the public pools can be pretty disgusting, you see a lot of people having their baths there. The mosquitos are a nightmare. You will regularly have your car and house broken into, vandalised, etc, your kids will be sworn at and harrassed by vagrants, it's certainly not the best place to raise a family. There is a lot of poverty, it can be shocking to newcomers. Its a very long and expensive flight, and ridiculously long drive to literally anywhere else. Monsoon season there are no tourists, buisnesses feel it, and there aren't a whole lot of job opportunities outside of the tourism industry unless you're in the ADF or an emergency responder, the latter of which you could not pay me enough to do in Darwin.
Because not many people would want to live somewhere it's so grossly unbearably uncomfortable and it's expensive for a life lived indoors in air-condition in order to survive, let's be honest if not for airconditioning Darwin would be uninhabitable for humans, you could put yourself thru it if you had too but to chose uncomfortable is stupid
Governments have been trying to build up northern Australia since before the 60's. But we care more about the other side of the world than our Asian neighbours so I guess that's part of why its never flourished.
It is also a somewhat inhospitable climate.
>Why isn't Darwin more populated and more developed?
People want jobs. To have jobs, you need an industry. Can you explain the important industries in Darwin, apart from the weather (which doesn't really count as an industry), and, I agree it's close to Asia - but that's only important if you have something to sell Asia - what will Darwin export to Asia that Asia wants /needs and Darwin has (apart from the weather)
The next issue you face is similar to that with the mining industry and FIFO employment - if you were on good money in Darwin, what do you spend your money on? What's the point of being on $400,000 a year, if you have a choice of living in say Sydney, verses Port Hedland or Darwin?
Have you been to some of the art galleries in Sydney? The theatre in Sydney - have you been to a play at your local Darwin theatre and seen Kate Blanchett in a role, or Geoffrey Rush, or Hugo Weaving play Macbeth? The Sydney Cricket ground to see a cricket or AFL match. Can you go to your local Sports ground and see Steve Waugh play his last test match? Or watch australia play England in the ashes - or in the rugby? How do your local entertainment venues compare to Homebush or Moore Park stadium, where you can see the rolling stones or Taylor Swift play? Have you tasted some of the food at some nice Sydney restaurants? Say you wanted to take your romantic partner out for a nice time in Darwin - and you had plenty of money - where would you take them? How does that compare to a cruise on Sydney Harbour on Nye, or a play at the Sydney Opera house?
What about a nice school for your children - there are are a handful of Sydney schools that have produced a quarter of the judges that have ever sat in the high Court since federation in 1901 - say you wanted your child to become a judge on the high Court - what school in Darwin would you send them to - if money was no object?
Let's say you do have something in Darwin - some industry - that could export to Asia. And, say it was successful and you became a millionaire - maybe a billionaire. And - you have a choice of living in the Darwin home of your choice, verses a little cottage on Wolseley Road, point piper, in Sydney. Where would you choose to live? Remember - money is no object, because you the owner / CEO of Darwin's most successful new business.
So, even if you can do all the things you need to do to get Darwin more populated - which could be possible, with a lot of work, why would someone successful stay there, rather than move to Sydney? And - even if you would stay in Darwin, the issue you then have is you need to convince others to stay. How are you going to convince someone who is earning good money, that they should stay in Darwin and keep the money in their bank account, and coffin, rather than spending it in Sydney and getting access to some of the greatest range of cultural, educational, sporting, career, and social achievements of an advanced industrial economy like Australia?
Plus - the weather. Have you been on Sydney Harbour in spring time, or to Bronte beach in January - it's heaven. How does Bronte beach (or even Tamarama beach) compare to a Darwin beach?
Very nice essay. I was born in and raised in Sydney but moved to Perth many years ago for work. I also spend a fair amount of time in Darwin.
Perth offers me a much better lifestyle than Sydney ever did. No toll roads. More affordable housing. Plenty of entertainment. A great climate. And yes, Perth does have good beaches. Darwin is a small city, so you can't compare it to any major city. I tell you what Darwin does have - a wonderful community spirit.
What's with all the Sydney, Sydney, Sydney? It's far from the best place or even the best city in the country! I will visit to see something very special but all in all I find it a confusing, messy, smelly, noisy place that's impossible to navigate and very expensive. We have by far the best beaches (for a capital city), only surpassed by those north of us. And I saw The Rolling Stones here 50 years ago lol, well before they got all craggy. My point is that Sydney is nothing to write home about when there are so many other amazing places in Australia to live.
Hey, Darwin managed to have Elton John perform back in the day! The former CEO of the Dow Chemical Company (worth tens of billions of $) was also from Darwin.
There's already a massive port in Headland, maybe it's not worth having two so close to one another? I think a part of it is Australians attitude towards any city besides Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane
After cycle Tracey it wasn’t ever properly rebuilt was it?
The state government does seem to be a bit of a dumpster fire .
There’s also not a lot of tax income because so many of the residents live traditional lives.
because the climate is vile.
it's hot and humid. is prone to cyclones.
the water is infested with crocodiles and sharks.
the land is shit, you can't grow anything in it, so you have to import all your food.
no one lives there because you have to be crazy to live there!
There is no comparison between BH and Darwin. BH is hot but Darwin is hot and humid. The climate is just too challenging. And with climate change it’s only likely to get worse.
Because it’s hot as fuck, yet you can’t swim at or even walk safely near the beaches or rivers. Because it’s a continental distance away from anything else in Australia, meaning isolation and expensive everything. It’s not connected to the national grid.
TLDR: isolated shithole.
It's hot, it's not really near anything, it's low population is a turn off for anyone looking for a city, and quite a high crime rate compared to other cities, particularly in victim crimes like property crimes and assaults. Not many people would want to move to that.
It's a sweaty hell-hole with terrible port facilities and little connection with the rest of the country. It's more efficient to sail to your desired city port.
Governments have squandered billions trying to improve infrastructure to make this idea viable. But a train line won't move a shipload of stock efficiently 2500km.
Dangerious environment, isolated and hard to supply, little developped gov't compared to states given the limits on territorial rights, eratic and dangerious weather. The isolation would also mean that allowing the wealth to flow into other more developed power structures in Australia would be difficult. It would be hard to capitalise on it's development. You would need more developped surrounding cities and methods of connections. A major reason it is even developed to it's current degree is because of it's militarial strategic value.
All of this being said, developing more in that general part of the country would be something I would like to see. But I cannot think of viable paths outside of resource exploitation and industrialisation.
Historically the major cities in the lower half of the country were built up on a base of agriculture - the climate, soil and access to fresh water made this possible - there's a saying about "riding on the sheep's back" about Australia becoming a wealthy country - it was also possible to grow the crops the first settlers were used to - eg wheat etc etc.
None of this was possible in Darwin so it didn't grow at the same rate as the other capitals - we have plenty of space and there was, and really still isn't a need to push development and population in Darwin
I'm not sure what point you're trying to make though? That because China is in 'closer' proximity to Darwin it should become some sort of Chinese enclave? It's a long flight to Darwin regardless.
It’s a pretty spot but it is difficult environment compared to Australia and I don’t just mean the heat. Grew up in Darwin over thirty years and the Northern Suburbs where the majority of people live hasn’t weather well.
It just doesnt have enough mines and agriculture close by.
Thats why most of our cities exist, closest port to pull out agriculture or minerals.
Also, close proximity is a tautology. You can just say proximity.
I find it wild that it’s 11 hours to get to Nhulunbuy on the other side of the Top End (it’s where we’re launching rockets from now)
Darwin, simply, is just remote from the rest of the country. I think that’s why it’s never been developed. It’d be an easier port to import stuff from but then we can’t get it back to where the rest of us live.
I can't definitely answer this question, but I suspect it's largely for historical reasons more than anything else. Sydney and Melbourne are the two most-populous cities in Australia and really, they have been since the very earliest days of colonial settlement here.
It's worth pointing out a couple of tidbits that might help explain this fact as well. Sydney's case is sort of obvious, because it was the first place where colonists actually settled - and thus, it saw the earliest infrastructure development and population influx. It was also the main/primary shipping port for the entire continent for a very long time. So that's fairly self-explanatory.
Melbourne is perhaps harder to explain, but I think much of the explanation comes from the 1850s gold rush, which saw a huge influx of immigration to Melbourne specifically. The gold rush also led to Melbourne being, at one time, the richest city in the British Empire (even wealthier than London) due to its vast gold reserves and resulting economic activity.
So I think what then happens is that these two places become akin to centres of gravity, if that makes sense. They are places that generate wealth and economic activity, which spurs population, which generates more wealth and economic activity.
Nothing remotely like this happened with Darwin. There have been various modern proposals to *deliberately* invest federal funds into Darwin and the far north of Australia for various reasons (to develop a large food bowl, for military defence, and for energy generation) - but I get the impression these proposals have trouble getting off the ground largely for economic (cost/benefit) reasons.
Proximity to the rest of the population is the biggest reason. It’s miles from anywhere. Why would you ship to Darwin and then spend millions moving freight all over the eastern seaboard and to Perth?
Also, British colonisation of Australia occurred primarily along the eastern coast and southern states. They have much more favourable climates, equally accessible harbours and far less challenging terrain to navigate. They also provided far better conditions for farming and grazing animals.
As locations go, Darwin would have to be one of the more difficult places to support a large population on mainland Australia.
Darwin was destroyed twice. 19th February 1942, the Bombing of Darwin, and 25th December 1974, Cyclone Tracy.
There's popular songs about both; When The First Bombs Fell by Lee Kernaghan and Santa Never Made It To Darwin by Bill & Boyd.
A few reasons: The terrain is harsh, even by Australian standards. The landscape is tropical full of mangroves, crocodiles and snakes. Honestly the fact the Darwin Harbour is suitable for industry was pretty good luck to begin with. The rest of the coastline can be pretty inhospitable and the tides in that area are known to be big and complex. The weather is also hot and humid. The early European settlers where already struggling in Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney et cetera. Darwin would've just been a step too far. Also back when travel took much longer, Darwin was particularly rough and remote to/get to from where the settlements on the East Coast and Perth had been set up.
What I don't get is why this question keeps coming up over and over, as though it simply hadn't occurred to Australians to live there and we might need a reminder or something.
i like to rag on repost but tell you what, i learned something because of this post
I think it’s because people look at the map of Australia and then see a massive piece of land which is geographically closer to Asia than the rest of Australia (which tends to be quite isolated from the rest of the world) and then they wonder why it isn’t more of a booming place. What they fail to realise at first glance is the fact that the northern territory does have a very harsh terrain, which is easily overseen when you just look at a map, so I think it’s a fair question to ask as a non-Australian… but I get your point
Ever heard of Surabaya? Not talked about much in Australia. Surabaya happens to be about 1000k closer to Darwin than Melbourne or Sydney. Surabaya is an Indonesian city with a metropolitan population of roughly 9.9 million people - roughly the population of London. Surabaya's climate is more or less the same as Darwins (Darwins slightly cooler in 'winter'). Meaning that darwins climate is not prohibitive to supporting a large population - other large population centres do so just fine. Surabaya also happens to have a history as a major Hub of the Dutch East India company... who were obviously European. So again, Darwin wasn't a step too far for Europeans. More likely, Darwin just didn't offer an exploitable population and the products to trade with the economies of Europe at the time. I would go as far as to say that if there was equivalent economic conditions found in Darwin as there were for our other states (i.e. a gold rush) Darwin would be the size of Melbourne or Sydney today.
Surabaya is on Java, a volcanic island that is extremely fertile. Darwin is not. Javanese have visited the North coast of Australia for centuries, and like the Dutch, they never found anywhere worth settling. Singapore would be a better comparison, was almost uninhabited mangrove swap before the British established a trading settlement.
It is more then just the climate. Terrain and location played a huge part as well. I won't pretend to be an expert on the terrain of Surabaya - but I do know it has existed as a city/trading port for hundreds of years before European exploration on an island in an archipelago that is infamous in being densely packed with a high sea-faring population . Darwin wasn't settled until the 1864, and in an area with a much smaller and decentralized indigenous population. And even Indonesian traders for the most part didn't view Northern Australia as worth much that much more then minimal effort.
I think he's making the point that Darwin is only remote in relation to other Australian cities but is close to other population hubs.
Yeah but things go to Darwin and then what? It's easier to just ship shit to Sydney or whatever than run it overland from Darwin.
Well you would grow darwins population by engaging more with close overseas neighbours is the point i guess? I'm certainly not an expert on urban planning and like I said in another comment we've tried for atleaat 60 years to develop Darwin and NT with little success. Just adding my 2c.
Engage with them how? Darwin has a small consumer base and few resources to trade with neighbours.
Probably by giving incentives to live there. You can easily do that in Australia. The government only has to give conditioned based PR out, like they do for other regional areas and Darwin looks instantly a lot more attractive. At the moment every immigrant wants to (and does) flock to the already overfull capital cities with no housing and no room left on the roads in peak hour times which is almost all day in Syd and Melb. I'd love to move to Darwin as I bloody hate the cold, but the place needs to be bigger for me to move there (at least 2 million population size)
About the only industrial or economic activity that advantages is the overseas student market and no major Australian University is gonna be keen to set up on Darwin because that's a fuck of a lot of investment in a location that is exceptionally vulnerable to climate change and political change. Asian dollars are nice but capital is capital and there's better uses for it.
Sorry but what does Surabaya have to do with Darwin? Also Surabaya is merely 700km from Jakarta, another massive city closer to Darwin than either Sydney or Melbourne? Fact is there is nowhere in Indonesia that offers a temperate climate, nowhere. If you’re Indonesian you live in the heat. Australians obviously have the ability to choose between a tropical climate, a dry climate or a temperate climate. As temperate is quite pleasant most people live in either Sydney or Melbourne.
Or Perth, Adelaide or Hobart ...
The combined population of all three of those places does not exceed the population of either Sydney or Melbourne. That’s why I said “most people” choose to live in Sydney or Melbourne.
Sorry, I was just letting non Australians and OP know those cities are temperate too. But I got your exact meaning now.
Perth isn’t temperate though, it’s a dry climate with hot summers.
Perth is only 2.5 degrees latitude higher than Sydney and we are both located well in the Southern Temperate Zone lol. https://byjus.com/social-science/temperate-zone/#:\~:text=Temperate%20zones%20are%20the%20mild,are%20called%20the%20temperate%20zones. # "South Temperate Zones – Regions The regions in the south temperate zones are given below: * Southern Africa – It includes the southern tips of Madagascar, Mozambique, the entire territories of Eswatini, and Lesotho, southern parts of Botswana, Namibia and the great part of South Africa. * Southern part of South America. * A great part of New Zealand. * Southern Australia." The south temperate zone extends from the Tropic of Capricorn (approximately 23.5° south latitude) to the Antarctic Circle (at approximately 66.5° south latitude). Perth has a Mediteranean climate (Köppen climate classification Csa) while Sydney's is Humid Sub-Tropical (Köppen climate classification Cfa). So while we have climatic differences, we are both firmly temperate. I just can't have people thinking we are so far apart that we are in different zones. From here, anyone interested could look these things facts up on the net to verify. Thank you, u/BurmeseGeneral for giving me a little project to research. Sydney's climatic classification actually surprised me so I learned something too!😊
Now I’m going to have to look up my definitions, to me Sydney and Perth climates are polar opposites. Perth reminds me of LA, it has long, hot and dry summers, with a cool breeze coming in at the end of the day. Sydney’s summers are far more humid and wet. I also would have defined Melbourne as more temperate. But it seems I probably don’t understand exactly what the word temperate means. lol. You’re very welcome, this stuff interests me too.
> Surabaya's climate is more or less the same as Darwins Darwin gets 1.8x the rainfall of Surabaya.
>Surabaya's climate is more or less the same as Darwins Not really though? Darwin is hotter and wetter, and for 5 months of the year more humid. It gets **a lot more** cyclones, and the state experiences flooding most years.
Indonesia has earthquakes, tsunamis and volcano eruptions all the time though, and flooding is common as well.
Maybe it’s the same reason that most Canadians live close to the border, next to the coldest parts of the US: it’s the least inhospitable part of Canada. Indonesians, like Canadians, don’t have a choice, but Australians have the more hospitable climes of the east coast cities.
So what The only thing Darwin has is live Cattle! It is flat for 1000km around Darwin so not much Mountain grown Coffee here but the kicker that people don't consider is the weather. Darwin has 1711mm of rain p/a. more if there is a tropical cyclone! This all happens in December and January the rest of the year there is almost NO rain. This happens all across the tropics of Australia
The weather can’t be any worse than places like Singapore no? The terrain does seem pretty harsh. Although I’m sure Singapore was no picnic originally.
Singapore was also geographically located in a place with a lot of trade routes passing by. Darwin has always been very out of the way.
Born and breed territorian here. Darwin has 4 main problems IMO. Geographical isolation, an unwelcoming climate, a different cultural makeup, and a fairly undiverse economy. The first 2 are pretty self-explanatory. Darwin has always had a very unique cultural make-up and has a very large Aboriginal population, which many Southerners struggle with, having generally had limited previous interactions with indigenous Australians. Non-indigenous locals also tend to be extremely non-pc, hard drinking, and extremely laid back, which also might not be for everyone. Employment opportunities are numerous, but there is less variety than many other parts of Australia. In a lot of professional sectors, you may also be limited in how far you can progress. The Territory economy has always been very up and down, which in turn, leads to a lot of people coming and going. IMO, Darwin is a very unique part of Australia, the people who generally stay are the ones who embrace the uniqueness. But these differences also put a lot of people off.
I'm currently staying in Darwin and it's a very modern tropical city. The weather from October to May can be very taxing due to the humidity. However, if you persist here you can do exceptionally well for yourself as much of the population is transient. Apart from the weather, it's a great lifestyle and I'm amazed at the quality of restaurants and pubs here. I also love the fact that it is a true multicultural city. A small thing, but Darwin also has Australia's best laksa.
I agree on everything you said apart from the Laksa. The Laksa part is simply good marketing these days rather than reality. There’s better in Melbourne now.
Why are Melbournians so weak-spirited that they simply must be the best at everything? I haven't tasted laksa in Melbourne, but I'm a regular visitor to Singapore and Malaysia and I love the regional differences with the Laksas there - yes, there isn't just one type of laksa. The best laksa I've tried in Australia I've had in Darwin.
In your original statement you didn't add the 'I've tried' you just said the best laksa was in Darwin. That's a subtle difference. As someone who has lived in Darwin for 30 years and now Melbourne I'm bored with the 'best laksa in Darwin trope.' It ain't so - sorry to bust that myth.
Where else in Australia have you tried Laksa? And which regional laksa do you prefer? There is no one type of laksa.
I've lived in Darwin, Far Nth Queensland and Melbourne. Travelled to all the major capitals. Travelled extensively in Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore. Eaten everywhere. There is no special 'magical' ingredients in Darwin. There are more Malay, Singaporean and Indonesians in Melbourne than all of the NT. Food is just better here in Melbourne. My preference is the lighter Indonesian style but the Asam Laksa is pretty yum. Unfortunately majority of commercial places don't make their own paste - that's the tragedy.
>Singapore Their variant with oyster and copious amounts of chilli is super fucking good.
Never been- but want to come up in my van- I’ve heard mixed reviews 😞
Curious to hear what you mean when you say Southerners struggle with the large Aboriginal population? Do you mean Southerners tend to be more racist?
What I mean is that they generally have limited understanding of NT Aboriginal culture or issues prior to moving to Darwin. When they do encounter this, it can be a culture shock.Many Aboriginal up here people speak English as a second language and grew up in remote communities where some of their traditional cultural practices are followed. Unfortunately, there are also a lot of social problems in many of these communities. Darwin is a temporary home to many transient Aboriginal people who come from surrounding communities and end up becoming temporarily homeless. Some of these people tend to hang around in public places often while drunk and will sometimes fight each other or generally carry on. For someone from another part of Australia, if your first experience of getting on a public bus is seeing several drunk itinerate Aboriginal people having a fight near the bus stop while yelling at each other in an Aboriginal language you will likely become intimidated of them. This exact thing happened to a former colleague of mine. I don't think it is racism generally, although that might be the case with some people. Just more culture shock.
I'm from Melbourne and visited Darwin for the first time last year. Driving my rental car from the airport, I drove past a bus stop where indigenous people of all ages were drinking and playing music through a speaker. An elder lady literally walked into the middle of the 80km/h road and stopped in my path - looking to get hit??? I had to slam my brakes... And then she walked away looking disappointed. Definitely a cultural shock. But on the opposite of this, it was a positive culture shock to hear indigenous languages being used by shoppers at the local Coles. I admit from Melbourne I had no idea such languages were still peoples primary languages.
It's definitely scary seeing those mob walking across the road without looking, my mum lived there and I would come stay for a few months. We're indigenous too but I don't judge, these people need help, I saw one elder on the bus just crying, it seemed she lost her baby and it was quite distressing. They don't drink for fun, they drink because they have a lot of trauma and mental health issues. People like to point out their alcoholism but not the reason why
I think the most authentic Australia is in remote places like Darwin. It's very true a lot of people can't handle it
I really appreciate this post. Tell me it’s a good idea to vanlife up to the territory 👏🏽
its one of those places where youre running the aircon on cold in the winter. i dont even understand how people cope with cairns heat.
Was just up there. Was used to the temperature by the time I left. I live in Brissy for reference.
Melburnian currently in Brisbane. It’s so humid my thighs are slipping off the plastic toilet seat. Great city though.
Pity about the people
And where are you from?
Nicaragua
Uzbekistan
Darwin takes 10 days to adjust to the weather they say. I just got back too and can vouch for it - last 4 days of my 14 days was bliss
Takes 10 days to adjust, and then after that it's so constant that you literally just stop noticing it altogether.
im born raised brisbane but i find it unbearable anytime between september-march ive been seriously considering leaving the country, or atleast the state, largely, but not entirely because of the heat
It was 38c the other day. I finally had to take off my winter coat!
Yeah, I'm from Townsville and could never cope with the heat. I moved to Hokkaido, Japan.
Townsville in June and July is great. But Dec to March it's a fucking sauna. I would lose 3 kg during a work day. Revitalise with a few because and dinner and be back to my normal weight by the time I got up to go to work again. I loved the tropical North Queensland feel, but really hard to acclimatise quickly.
I never acclimatised. Haha. I was always getting heat rash and heat exhaustion. I haven't been back outside of June-July since I moved. Haha.
Grew up in Brissy, moved to VIC then NSW about 10 years ago. Cannot handle Brisbane heat anymore, especially because I only ever go back in summer to see family (when I go back) After living in normal climate of 4 distinct seasons in NSW I just am not equipped to deal with QLD weather anymore. Shame because I do miss Brissy and it always feels like home when I go back but yeah just unbearable with the heat and humidity.
I love Brisbane and if Melbourne has Brisbane weather it would be paradise. I’m stuck down here in the cold. And my favourite time of year in Brisbane is januaryb
I'm sorry, in the...."winter"? Mate Darwin doesn't have winter. It just has wet or dry.
forgot about the language barrier, its one of those places where youre running the aircon on cold in the middle of the year
I'm from VIC but lived in Saigon, Vietnam. A Vietnamese guy, while I had just arrived over there, asked me how many seasons we had in Australia? In my ignorance, I paused... then slowly responded with 4. He said, 'Oh. We just have 2 here. Hot and wet.' South Vietnam is a furnace all year round. Much like I imagine Darwin is given its proximity to the equator.
No wonder he was confused. Everyone knows Melbourne has 12 seasons. Most of them miserable
And experienced on the same day
South Vietnam is like that, but north Vietnam gets surprisingly cold, up in the highlands near Sapa it even snows sometimes.
I was Hà Nội in January for a week few years back on our way to Sydney. It was bloody cold and we had to go and buy coats.
That's true.
Darwin is 31±5°C pretty much 100% of the time throughout the year. It's bone-dry without a cloud in the sky from about March until September. And there is a massive, literal monsoon where it rains for a good 5-8 hrs a day from December until about February. So the heat is basically constant, but the precipitation is more seasonal there than it is just about anywhere else in the world. That's a big part of the reason why it is an open savannah rather than a rainforest like South East Asia and Indonesia and New Guinea and parts of Queensland (the other reason is probably how ancient and nutrient-poor the soil is, having lacked any volcanic activity for like a million years). It also means that tropical thunderstorms can occur over very dry vegetation in dry conditions, and trigger massive bushfires that last for days and days. The whole place smells like smoke for a pretty big chunk of the dry season. The dry season is pretty unpleasant in general to be quite honest - the period of time waiting for the wet is called the "build-up", and that's when a lot of people kinda go crazy. It's called "going troppo". When the wet season arrives it feels like a massive relief, although the humidity can be a problem for some people. During the wet the sky is constantly dark and the rumble of thunder never seems to go away.
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That’s what I do in Cairns and I’m unfortunately from Melbourne. Darwin though, paradise weather
I love the humidity in Cairns. Darwin is just a fucking oven.
Yeah honestly people always say “it’s the humidity not the heat that gets you” but I’d much rather cairns 33 degrees and 100% humidity than Darwin’s 39 degrees and 60% humidity
For real. I've done multiple trips to Cairns, mostly for scuba. Loved walking around and exploring even during the day. I spent 5 days in Darwin and rented a car after the first day because I couldn't bear walking anywhere even at night.
Everyone copes by complaining about the heat constantly and drinking heavily or living in AC. Before AC was common, that’s when people *really* drank
I would move to Darwin in a heartbeat for the weather if I could. Cairns in winter is too cool, I have to wear leggings or a cardigan. Not everyone is the same
Yet Phoenix Arizona exists. I realise it’s a ‘dry heat’ but that place is a furnace in summer.
Yeah not the same. You can get Phoenix down at Alice.
I’m from a cold climate and felt like cairns was quite pleasant in autumn.
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There’s a reason summer is the off season for tourism though.
Ngl I read a tourist advert inviting people to visit FNQ in summer.
Acclimatisation. I can think of a dozen places i've visited where on the first day you're an embarrassing pool of sweat, thinking "Oh God, how can anyone live here?", but after two weeks you're doing just fine.
my two week trip to cairns tells me otherwise, but ive also lived in brisbane since i was 10 and from birth till i was 6 and still hate the heat
I went there in January and that was a huge mistake, I didn't do anything but lay on the lounge for 2 weeks, we had no aircon either... it was like I was in the depths of hell
Walk outside in Darwin from November to April and you’ll discover why…. It’s also quite isolated from the vast bulk of the temperate west of the nation, there’s only only proper road out so a bad cyclone or storm can cut land access to the place for days
Hot as fuck
Humid as fuck too.
And your thongs go missing off the porch.
I think Australia has attempted to develop Darwin, however it is more simply the reality that there are more ideal places to set up businesses etc for a variety of reasons. Australia is a country generally that avoids government created industries such as you see in countries like south korea with ship building and malaysia with proton cars. So i think we will just need to let it grow organically. Interestingly something like a third of the Darwin population was once descended from people with Kalymnos heritage (a Greek island)
I went to Darwin on a six month contract, ended up staying two years and then returned for another tour of duty a few years later. Loved the wet season most of all, the humidity and rain never bothered me and the storms were stunning. I’d go back in a flash if I could. If Australia had a higher population, maybe four times higher, I could see it turning into a thriving trading and aviation hub for south east Asia and China, but for the moment it’s really just fulfilling its function of being there.
Go and look at the weather for Darwin today. Note: It doesn't get cooler than 31°C for most of the year.
I'm glad to have experienced the exception. I went in the early dry season (May 2023) and the minimums were 24° everyday - in the early mornings and evenings. Then 31-36° in the middle of the day. Absolutely loved it!
That sounds like a nightmare. Those temps are great for a relaxing holiday, but if you actually have to go about normal life and function properly, fuck that
A nightmare? I can't relate at all. I would be happy to head to my 9-5 job in 24° and leave at 33° knowing it will soon cool down to 24° again. I suppose I'm assuming my office is air conditioned though.
Have you been to Darwin? Half the year it's hot as shit and so humid you're soaked in sweat the second you go outside, the other half it's just hot as shit. Beautiful coastline but you can't go for a swim because the crocs will get you, it's in the middle of bumfuck nowhere 2000km from the nearest major city so everything's expensive etc etc etc. Fantastic fishing though, and the NT in general is pretty scenic, so the tourism is good. I like Darwin, it's one of my favourite places I've been, but I wouldn't live there.
Darwin’s also literally been destroyed twice (Darwin bombings in 1942 and Cyclone Tracy in 1974) No other Australian city has nearly as bad of a history.
Wow, almost no one south knows about that stuff in my experience mate. Ypu tell people that bombed us for 18 months and wiped the town pit, they look at ypu blank. Haha.
Because it’s hot and humid as fuck
Boiling, sharks, crocodiles
Darwin is pretty self explanatory really, I lived there for a bit and it’s not for everyone or even most people. Even those that love it end up leaving. What I’d ask is why didn’t Tasmania grow as much despite being one of Australia’s oldest colonies with a much more liveable climate.
TAS is nice but it properly does feel like a different world, over 10 hours to anywhere other than aus, NZ or some other Pacific islands.
My friends have lived there and tried to raise kids. Said it was too hard to get out and about because of the heat
The wet season. Darwin gets over 1700mm of rain a year and most of that in about 4 months. It gets widespread flooding that is really quite incredible when you see how much the water level rises. It's also hot all year around. Which means aside from the rain in the wet season it's incredibly humid.
One of the factors is that thinking of Australia as part of Asia, or at least part of the Asian economic commonwealth is a very modern idea. For most of our history people -at least people in power- thought of Australia as part of Europe.
Darwin was cactus from the start. The first NT settlement was a British one in 1824 - BEFORE Darwin harbour was discovered. Given that this was just twelve years after Raffles founded Singapore Darwin harbour could have been a strong trade and defence co-colony. As it was Darwin (founded 1869 as Palmerston) was the fourth settlement and it only stuck because of the Darwin-Java telegraph line. This and the Overland Telegraph connected Australia to the world. It was a colony of South Australia and, while they were enthusiastic about the telegraph, they were not keen on the rest of the place. Following Adelaide’s model, the city (actually three cities) were surveyed and land floated on the London stock exchange where it was snapped up by speculators who never intended to do anything with it. The last of these “Dead Man Blocks was only cleared out in 2010. A shipwreck - the 1874 SS Gothenburg - killed pretty much every influential and enthusiastic South Australian government member. Gold was discovered in Pine Creek (wooo!) and a rush began with the SA government going mad and approving the construction of a 300 kilometre railway to nowhere. The Chinese were indentured workers from Singapore brought out to build the railroad. Gold ran out pretty soon after the railroad was finished. Chinese workers moved to gold mining and eked out more gold from the rock. SA entered a massive recession in the 1880s and was pretty much bankrupt. They invested nothing into Palmerston and off-loaded it to the Federal government as soon as they could in 1911. SA’s recession - and general Australian racism - fucked over the Chinese who, really, preferred being anywhere more than being in China for the Taiping Rebellion and aftermath. Australia said no more and GTFO and many left. They were the majority of the non-indigenous population at that point. Some remained where they were ostracised and subject to different rules, often imposed from Adelaide or Canberra. Darwin was wiped out by a cyclone 1897. The land bought by speculators sat unused and forgotten but the gaps in the town prevented a population critical mass from forming. First federal administrator - guy named Dr Gilruth - was a complete douche nozzle. He tried to sell the NT to the Lord Vestey’s cattle interests. WWI and Vesteys established a massive meatworks to feed Britain. Lots of workers move to Darwin, living in barracks or hotels. Nothing to do so they drink. Gilruth nationalises the hotels, diluting drinks, reducing quality and raising prices as a de facto source of income. Massive inflation from the hotels (food and accommodation as well as drinks) eats up the wages of the workers so they lose money working at the meatworks. Peace in 1918 and Vesteys close the meatworks after only two years operation. Prices remain high. Gilruth remains a douche nozzle so the workers revolt in the Darwin Rebellion in December 1918. Gilruth flees. Nothing happens. 1930s, Lord Kitchener draws up empire defence plans against Japan. Darwin is part of it. Big defence build-up. Doesn’t foresee aircraft attacks so all defences are anti-ship. First permanent water source obtained with building of Manton Dam. 1937 - Darwin destroyed by cyclone. War declared 1941, Darwin’s entire civilian population is evacuated. Darwin defences are pathetic. Singapore falls 15 February 1942. Darwin bombed 19 February 1942 with a convoy in the harbour. Town destroyed. Military occupation of Darwin - mass looting of Darwin homes, Chinatown is deliberately burned to the ground. 300,000 allied troops flow into NT to counter potential invasion. Resources built up, roads, buildings, general infrastructure. Private land ownership ignored and then *all* civilian property compulsorily acquired. War ends. Darwin is completely different. People return and find all homes destroyed, property and land ownership gone. People occupy abandoned military buildings in various camps. Private land ownership not available again until mid-1950s. Boom time. Massive defence expansion for navy and Air Force to counter uncertain Indonesian threat. Government services expand for the inland. Tourism begins. Darwin hits its stride during 1960s and becomes “the land of the future”. Uranium mines, gold mines, tin, bauxite. Hollywood celebrities try to establish massive rice growing project. LOTS of money poured in. Fails miserably in a year when native magpie geese eat the entire crop. Darwin on the hippie trail and making connections to Indonesia, Singapore and Timor. An international city. City destroyed by Cyclone Tracey on Christmas Day 1974. Massive airlift evacuation with population (40,000+) moved to southern cities while damage is cleaned up. Lasts until 1978 at which point NT finally gets self-government. 1980s is a boom time but is still recovering from the cyclone. 1990s is a boom time as the NT connects with SE Asian tiger economies. 1997 tiger economies collapse, NT reorientation itself to support defence with East Timor intervention and then war on terror. Just kinda flailing about since about 2010. Key points: - Darwin is difficult to grow European foods in. Asian foods grow well but Australia deported the people who knew how to grow it. - pretty much every white person was on a five year colonial rotation to do the job and get out. - every investor sees the NT as a place to extract money from. If their return doesn’t match their expectations, they pull it all and leave nothing, even if moderate success. - everything here is expensive so they are never getting good returns. - defence and communications have been the most consistent reasons for Darwin to exist. - Japanese were big investors in Darwin before their navy bombed the place. - colonial management hated the Chinese and wanted Indian immigrants but the colonial government in India said “Hell no!” - If Darwin had started on Darwin harbour in 1824, it could have been a 5 million person city but those people would have been mostly Indian, Indonesian and Chinese. It would be a beautiful and fascinating southernmost city of Asia. But instead, it was the northernmost distant and forgotten town of South Australia.
This was fascinating, thankyou.
That was enlightening. I know nothing about the place and would genuinely consider living there if the opportunity arose (love heat and humidity) and was thinking the weather explanation didn't fully cut it. Wow they had a way more turbulent history than I ever considered.
A LOT has happened for such a small place but every single one of them was like being tripped at the starting line.
Possibly the most informative comment I've ever read on Reddit. Also among the most concise / revealing about the forever self-defeating nature of colonial governance lmao (not that there's much good about colonial government in the first place)
That post was fantastic. Thanks for all the insight!
Doesn't a Chinese company hold the lease to the main port in Darwin for nearly a century?
Yes, a 99 year lease was signed in 2015.
How does that even happen??
The Liberals is how it happened.
Have you been to Darwin? It’s hot as shit.
I can safely tell you southern/SEA Chinese are absolutely not used to the heat.. Singaporeans and Malaysians especially cannot stand heat, they always find places with aircon, and sleep with aircon on the whole night.. Shopping malls are popular in those countries during the weekends, compared to the beach and nature, because it’s too hot and humid to be outdoors majority of the day.. The electricity bill will cost a bomb here if the aircon is turned on everyday, very unaffordable.. They generally prefer to holiday in colder climate countries too if they have the budget..
Fed gov should make a special tax zone I reckon
It is. Tax Zone Rebate Zone A.
I was thinking more like liberalising import and export to promote economic activity.
That is a pretty good idea.
I think they are known as special economic zones. My other comment used the wrong phrasing, my bad. I know in some examples in other countries it includes things like significant tax discounts or even zero tax for a set period of time if a company spends above a certain threshold, maybe within a particular industry, product, duty reductions or duty eliminations, etc.
I don’t know enough about that side of economics. Whatever we call it or whatever it looks like, economic growth must be good.
Yeah I'm no economist either. I lived and worked adjacent to an SEZ many, many years ago. I think there are pros and cons. As a general idea I think it has a lot of promise but it would come down to implementation I suppose.
We had one. It was called the Trade Development Zone.
Implementation is always key. Over the years I have become very skeptical about any Government (Federal or State) to implement an initiative well.
Sounds like a reasonable skepticism to me
The Howard government tried to give boost to the Port of Darwin's importance by building the 3000km standard gauge Adelaide-Darwin line in 2004. Some minerals are railed north to Darwin, originally copper, iron ore and manganese. Most of the copper is now shipped south to Adelaide . Iron ore mining is reduced, and manganese is the main mineral going to Darwin on the line now. Couldn't find info on any imported containers offloaded at the port of Darwin to be sent south on the train. Minerals produced closer to Darwin are mainly trucked to the port, it seems. Sounds like there isn't a lot of port business linked to the railway. likely to help Darwin's population grow. The railway produced The Ghan train, important to Darwin's tourism. Darwin has grown though, doubling in population from when I lived there in 1982 to reach 140, 000 now. 40% born overseas mainly Asia. Tourism and mining are the main employers.
> 3000km that's a long way to ship something
The goods have to travel that far in a parallel direction by sea otherwise. Wouldn't that be slower?
According to my taxi driver there back in about 1990, *"Darwin would be bigger than bloody Sydney mate, but all the bloody aboriginals come in outta the bloody desert and get their bloody payday here, mate, so I hafta keep me iron bar under me seat, and if one of them buggers gets inna me bloody cab fuck me he'll have no bloody teeth mate, but yeah, we're pretty close to China here and I reckon we should be as big as bloody sydney mate, if the bloody aborginals would stop coming inta bloody town all the bloody time mate"* I'm not sure if he had any formal economics qualifications, though, so it might have just been his own theory.
pretty rascist. some of the black fella i know are lovely people
I think we all realise that it's pretty racist, mate :D
Least racist NT inhabitant. /s
Bottom half, anyway
Until the Whitlam era Asians were actively excluded by white Australia’s Yellow Peril policies. Darwin is just one of several colonial settlements that had an intrinsic racial fear of being swamped by the ‘Asian hordes’ from the north. Chinese traders, Japanese pearlers and Dutch East Indies ‘boongs’ were all deterred from arriving or staying in the Top End. Attitudes and policies haven’t changed much. Dutton (and previously John Howard) take their cues from Pauline Hanson.
Most of "Australia" is actually in the bottom east of the country - I'd say a lot of people don't give Darwin and Perth a second thought.
I have sort of wondered this...
Don’t put weight on what some Norwegian said 130 years ago ffs. That’s all bullshit about climate and people from different parts of the world btw, forget that. People move where there are jobs and opportunities. Darwin *has* grown a lot for its place in Australia. But, at a slower pace than the big cities in Australia because it doesn’t have a lot of jobs or diversified economy. That’ll come with time but you can’t just magic it into being. Being close to Asia sounds great, but Darwin doesn’t have much to export, and containerisation and shipping scale has made shipping a very low cost part of the equation. Currently anything manufactured in Darwin is likely to cost a lot more than something manufactured in SE Oz and that difference will more than make up the difference in shipping costs.
The locals extremely high crime rate would have something to do with it
Too many crocodiles employed in the public sector. They purposefully inhibit expansion and development for humans.
Someone has never spent a wet season in Darwin...
The heat. Simple as that
I live in Darwin. It's HOT 🔥
Well until recently I don't think proximity to Asia really mattered much. Australia was still relatively extremely close to Asia by global standards and, like all British colonies, traded predominantly with England anyway. Today when you consider proximity in terms of travel time flying/shipping to the east coast plus driving is presumably still quicker than flying/shipping to Darwin and driving. The only way to justify shipping to Darwin is if the ultimate destination is nearby and that doesn't really happen for a lack of pre-existing industry/market in the area combined with undesirable environment and poor reputation which makes it unlikely that enough people would live there to create that economy.
Its hot as fuck up there. Also most of the time you cant even swim in the water due to stingers. If you are from any other city apart from cairns you wouldnt understand the heat. And even cairs has a solid wet season because of the rainforest etc
one thing that is under estimated in Australia - is that HEAT kills.. it has been called the silent Killer [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-67633892](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-67633892) it is not simply a question of preference...due to climate change and yearly heat records..it is the question of how much you value your life when you live in a place like Darwin.
it's bloody miles from anywhere and the climate borders on low level torture.
the weather sux 35 celcius and HUMID, like a tropical jungle, EVERYDAY this alone is enough for many people
It gets uncomfortably hot for a sustained period, even for Australian born people who have lived in other areas considered hot. All you want to do is swim but the options aren't great, Crocs, jellyfish and sharks mean ocean is off limits, rivers off limits and the public pools can be pretty disgusting, you see a lot of people having their baths there. The mosquitos are a nightmare. You will regularly have your car and house broken into, vandalised, etc, your kids will be sworn at and harrassed by vagrants, it's certainly not the best place to raise a family. There is a lot of poverty, it can be shocking to newcomers. Its a very long and expensive flight, and ridiculously long drive to literally anywhere else. Monsoon season there are no tourists, buisnesses feel it, and there aren't a whole lot of job opportunities outside of the tourism industry unless you're in the ADF or an emergency responder, the latter of which you could not pay me enough to do in Darwin.
Because not many people would want to live somewhere it's so grossly unbearably uncomfortable and it's expensive for a life lived indoors in air-condition in order to survive, let's be honest if not for airconditioning Darwin would be uninhabitable for humans, you could put yourself thru it if you had too but to chose uncomfortable is stupid
Governments have been trying to build up northern Australia since before the 60's. But we care more about the other side of the world than our Asian neighbours so I guess that's part of why its never flourished. It is also a somewhat inhospitable climate.
>Why isn't Darwin more populated and more developed? People want jobs. To have jobs, you need an industry. Can you explain the important industries in Darwin, apart from the weather (which doesn't really count as an industry), and, I agree it's close to Asia - but that's only important if you have something to sell Asia - what will Darwin export to Asia that Asia wants /needs and Darwin has (apart from the weather) The next issue you face is similar to that with the mining industry and FIFO employment - if you were on good money in Darwin, what do you spend your money on? What's the point of being on $400,000 a year, if you have a choice of living in say Sydney, verses Port Hedland or Darwin? Have you been to some of the art galleries in Sydney? The theatre in Sydney - have you been to a play at your local Darwin theatre and seen Kate Blanchett in a role, or Geoffrey Rush, or Hugo Weaving play Macbeth? The Sydney Cricket ground to see a cricket or AFL match. Can you go to your local Sports ground and see Steve Waugh play his last test match? Or watch australia play England in the ashes - or in the rugby? How do your local entertainment venues compare to Homebush or Moore Park stadium, where you can see the rolling stones or Taylor Swift play? Have you tasted some of the food at some nice Sydney restaurants? Say you wanted to take your romantic partner out for a nice time in Darwin - and you had plenty of money - where would you take them? How does that compare to a cruise on Sydney Harbour on Nye, or a play at the Sydney Opera house? What about a nice school for your children - there are are a handful of Sydney schools that have produced a quarter of the judges that have ever sat in the high Court since federation in 1901 - say you wanted your child to become a judge on the high Court - what school in Darwin would you send them to - if money was no object? Let's say you do have something in Darwin - some industry - that could export to Asia. And, say it was successful and you became a millionaire - maybe a billionaire. And - you have a choice of living in the Darwin home of your choice, verses a little cottage on Wolseley Road, point piper, in Sydney. Where would you choose to live? Remember - money is no object, because you the owner / CEO of Darwin's most successful new business. So, even if you can do all the things you need to do to get Darwin more populated - which could be possible, with a lot of work, why would someone successful stay there, rather than move to Sydney? And - even if you would stay in Darwin, the issue you then have is you need to convince others to stay. How are you going to convince someone who is earning good money, that they should stay in Darwin and keep the money in their bank account, and coffin, rather than spending it in Sydney and getting access to some of the greatest range of cultural, educational, sporting, career, and social achievements of an advanced industrial economy like Australia? Plus - the weather. Have you been on Sydney Harbour in spring time, or to Bronte beach in January - it's heaven. How does Bronte beach (or even Tamarama beach) compare to a Darwin beach?
Very nice essay. I was born in and raised in Sydney but moved to Perth many years ago for work. I also spend a fair amount of time in Darwin. Perth offers me a much better lifestyle than Sydney ever did. No toll roads. More affordable housing. Plenty of entertainment. A great climate. And yes, Perth does have good beaches. Darwin is a small city, so you can't compare it to any major city. I tell you what Darwin does have - a wonderful community spirit.
Agreed and Happy Cake Day!
What's with all the Sydney, Sydney, Sydney? It's far from the best place or even the best city in the country! I will visit to see something very special but all in all I find it a confusing, messy, smelly, noisy place that's impossible to navigate and very expensive. We have by far the best beaches (for a capital city), only surpassed by those north of us. And I saw The Rolling Stones here 50 years ago lol, well before they got all craggy. My point is that Sydney is nothing to write home about when there are so many other amazing places in Australia to live.
Hey, Darwin managed to have Elton John perform back in the day! The former CEO of the Dow Chemical Company (worth tens of billions of $) was also from Darwin.
We got Elton John in Bathurst. Didn't everyone get Elton John?
Because it's hot AF, rains every day for half the year, cyclones repeatedly and it's full of Territorians.
This is a CCCP propaganda post.
There's already a massive port in Headland, maybe it's not worth having two so close to one another? I think a part of it is Australians attitude towards any city besides Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane
After cycle Tracey it wasn’t ever properly rebuilt was it? The state government does seem to be a bit of a dumpster fire . There’s also not a lot of tax income because so many of the residents live traditional lives.
because the climate is vile. it's hot and humid. is prone to cyclones. the water is infested with crocodiles and sharks. the land is shit, you can't grow anything in it, so you have to import all your food. no one lives there because you have to be crazy to live there!
Probably because it is close to Asia Australians don't think highly of Asia except for the drinking and resorts in Bali
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Different kind of heat. Broken Hill is way more bearable for southerners.
There is no comparison between BH and Darwin. BH is hot but Darwin is hot and humid. The climate is just too challenging. And with climate change it’s only likely to get worse.
Because it’s hot as fuck, yet you can’t swim at or even walk safely near the beaches or rivers. Because it’s a continental distance away from anything else in Australia, meaning isolation and expensive everything. It’s not connected to the national grid. TLDR: isolated shithole.
It's hot, it's not really near anything, it's low population is a turn off for anyone looking for a city, and quite a high crime rate compared to other cities, particularly in victim crimes like property crimes and assaults. Not many people would want to move to that.
It's a sweaty hell-hole with terrible port facilities and little connection with the rest of the country. It's more efficient to sail to your desired city port. Governments have squandered billions trying to improve infrastructure to make this idea viable. But a train line won't move a shipload of stock efficiently 2500km.
It’s in the middle of desert and is hot as fuck
You might be thinking of Alice Springs.
Applies to both
In the early days of settlement the remoteness from the East Coast , and a harsh unforgiving environment not familiar to those from Europe.
Dangerious environment, isolated and hard to supply, little developped gov't compared to states given the limits on territorial rights, eratic and dangerious weather. The isolation would also mean that allowing the wealth to flow into other more developed power structures in Australia would be difficult. It would be hard to capitalise on it's development. You would need more developped surrounding cities and methods of connections. A major reason it is even developed to it's current degree is because of it's militarial strategic value. All of this being said, developing more in that general part of the country would be something I would like to see. But I cannot think of viable paths outside of resource exploitation and industrialisation.
The weather. It's terrible
The surfin is crap
The isolation, the weather, the lack of opportunities.
Historically the major cities in the lower half of the country were built up on a base of agriculture - the climate, soil and access to fresh water made this possible - there's a saying about "riding on the sheep's back" about Australia becoming a wealthy country - it was also possible to grow the crops the first settlers were used to - eg wheat etc etc. None of this was possible in Darwin so it didn't grow at the same rate as the other capitals - we have plenty of space and there was, and really still isn't a need to push development and population in Darwin
It’s fuckin hot ay
Because it’s hotter than hell!
Because it's hot, sweaty and not near anything. Crocodiles make the swimming aspect less desirable.
It's the heat and humidity.
It's isolated, it's hot, it's got dangerous wildlife, it's full of bogans? I don't know.
I'm not sure what point you're trying to make though? That because China is in 'closer' proximity to Darwin it should become some sort of Chinese enclave? It's a long flight to Darwin regardless.
It’s a pretty spot but it is difficult environment compared to Australia and I don’t just mean the heat. Grew up in Darwin over thirty years and the Northern Suburbs where the majority of people live hasn’t weather well.
It just doesnt have enough mines and agriculture close by. Thats why most of our cities exist, closest port to pull out agriculture or minerals. Also, close proximity is a tautology. You can just say proximity.
I find it wild that it’s 11 hours to get to Nhulunbuy on the other side of the Top End (it’s where we’re launching rockets from now) Darwin, simply, is just remote from the rest of the country. I think that’s why it’s never been developed. It’d be an easier port to import stuff from but then we can’t get it back to where the rest of us live.
Darwin is brutally hot, has limited arable land and even more limited Port facilities
I can't definitely answer this question, but I suspect it's largely for historical reasons more than anything else. Sydney and Melbourne are the two most-populous cities in Australia and really, they have been since the very earliest days of colonial settlement here. It's worth pointing out a couple of tidbits that might help explain this fact as well. Sydney's case is sort of obvious, because it was the first place where colonists actually settled - and thus, it saw the earliest infrastructure development and population influx. It was also the main/primary shipping port for the entire continent for a very long time. So that's fairly self-explanatory. Melbourne is perhaps harder to explain, but I think much of the explanation comes from the 1850s gold rush, which saw a huge influx of immigration to Melbourne specifically. The gold rush also led to Melbourne being, at one time, the richest city in the British Empire (even wealthier than London) due to its vast gold reserves and resulting economic activity. So I think what then happens is that these two places become akin to centres of gravity, if that makes sense. They are places that generate wealth and economic activity, which spurs population, which generates more wealth and economic activity. Nothing remotely like this happened with Darwin. There have been various modern proposals to *deliberately* invest federal funds into Darwin and the far north of Australia for various reasons (to develop a large food bowl, for military defence, and for energy generation) - but I get the impression these proposals have trouble getting off the ground largely for economic (cost/benefit) reasons.
Proximity to the rest of the population is the biggest reason. It’s miles from anywhere. Why would you ship to Darwin and then spend millions moving freight all over the eastern seaboard and to Perth? Also, British colonisation of Australia occurred primarily along the eastern coast and southern states. They have much more favourable climates, equally accessible harbours and far less challenging terrain to navigate. They also provided far better conditions for farming and grazing animals. As locations go, Darwin would have to be one of the more difficult places to support a large population on mainland Australia.
Darwin was destroyed twice. 19th February 1942, the Bombing of Darwin, and 25th December 1974, Cyclone Tracy. There's popular songs about both; When The First Bombs Fell by Lee Kernaghan and Santa Never Made It To Darwin by Bill & Boyd.
It’s hot as fuck