City history
Inhabited for tens of thousands of years by the Gadigal people who named Sydney Cove Warrane, Sydney evolved into Australia's premier port city, adopting Australia's first standard time zone in 1895.
Chapter one
Indigenous name
"Sydney Cove"
Recorded in First Fleet journals and maps from 1788, Warrane is the traditional Gadigal name for Sydney Cove and its surrounding shoreline.
Sydney Cove
The traditional name used by the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation for Sydney Cove and the surrounding harbour shores.
Named after Thomas Townshend, 1st Viscount Sydney
Captain Arthur Phillip chose Sydney Cove for the British penal settlement in January 1788, naming it in honor of the British Home Secretary.
Official municipal designation
Sydney was officially incorporated as a city on 20 July 1842 under the Sydney Corporation Act.
Chapter two
New South Wales enacted the Standard Time Act 1894, establishing Australian Eastern Standard Time (AEST) at UTC+10:00 based on the 150th meridian east, replacing local observatory solar time on 1 February 1895.
Australia introduced nationwide daylight saving time as a World War I emergency energy-saving measure, though public resistance led to its repeal later that year.
Daylight saving time was temporarily reinstated across Australia during World War II under wartime emergency regulations from 1942 to 1944.
New South Wales passed the Standard Time Act 1971, reintroducing annual daylight saving time (AEDT, UTC+11:00) for summer months, later approved by a 1976 state referendum.
New South Wales aligned its daylight saving schedule with southeastern states and territories, fixing DST to run from the first Sunday in October to the first Sunday in April.
Chapter three
Captain Arthur Phillip established the penal colony at Warrane, relying on local solar time observations conducted by early astronomical instruments.
Sydney Observatory opened atop Observatory Hill and began dropping its daily time ball at 1:00 PM, accompanied by a cannon shot to calibrate ship chronometers in Port Jackson.
The opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge connected the city's north and south shores, with large transit clocks helping synchronize growing suburban rail networks.
Sydney hosted iconic fireworks over Sydney Harbour and the Opera House for the 2000 New Year, cementing its role as one of the world's leading New Year countdown locations.