Sydney Harbour islands

Originally a rocky island used as a place of punishment for convicts, Fort Denison was built over and renamed when fortifications were constructed there in the mid-nineteenth century in an attempt to protect the city from seaborne invasion. Though the fort was never used for that purpose, it has collected tidal and meteorological information since it was built.

From abattoir to shipping terminal, Glebe Island has been an intrinsic part of the development of industrial Sydney.

Cockatoo Island has changed dramatically from the uninhabited rocky island it was when Europeans arrived. Reshaped, levelled, cleared and used for a range of social and industrial purposes, the island is now a historic landmark, administered by the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust, and open to the public.

Tiny, yet beautiful, Clark Island became a popular picnic spot in the middle of the nineteenth century.

Goat Island stands tall and proud in the centre of Sydney Harbour. It has many traces of heritage left over from the convict and industrial past.

Sydney Harbour once had 14 islands. These were outcrops and the peaks of steep hills left uncovered as the sea level rose, between 10,000 and 6,000 years ago, flooding an ancient river valley and forming the harbour that exists today

Island which sits peacefully in the middle of Iron Cove. During the 1880s it became the centre of a number of remarkable scientific experiments.

Shark Island sits in Sydney Harbour, just 1km from Rose Bay. In 1945 the first Sydney to Hobart race was launched from its banks.

Snapper Island is the smallest island in Sydney Harbour. It is also the island that has been the most changed and reshaped by human manipulation.