Some of Sydney's regions were separated out by geographical features, and the biggest was Sydney Harbour itself. The Lower North Shore was Cammeraygal country bef0re the arrival of the Europeans and their diseases, and its scenic beauty was much admired by the settlers. A maritime history unites the harbourside suburbs of Milsons Point, McMahons Point, Cremorne Point, Neutral Bay, Kirribilli and Kurraba Point, while business was key up the hill at North Sydney. Waverton and Artarmon remained mostly residential.

Further north, on the Upper North Shore, timbergetting and fruitgrowing gave way to residential and industrial development once the railway went through. Transport was key to these healthy elevated northern suburbs, from the time the road north was built, with the construction of the railway line, and again when the Sydney Harbour Bridge was opened 1932. Mooch around Killara, Pymble, Lindfield, Gordon and Warrawee, as well as the other suburbs 'up the line'. Ryde, like Sutherland a region with a council district that corresponds roughly to the mental maps of its denizens, contains many suburbs now, all cut out of the bush country known to the Wallumedegal as Wallumetta, and first known to the Europeans as the Eastern Farms. As well as East, West and North Ryde, this area encompasses Marsfield,  Denistone and Denistone East, Putney and Meadowbank on the Parramatta River, and Eastwood, among others. Like the Upper North shore, the area has timber and orchards in its past, and suburban development in its present. Locals remember the apple-growing past every year at the Granny Smith festival, commemorating Maria Ann Smith and her hybrid green apples, bred in Eastwood.

Like all cities, Sydney is not one undifferentiated whole, but a collection of self-identified regions which may or may not line up with current administrative and government boundaries. Some of these regions and their names date back to before the establishment of local government boundaries, and refer to earlier divisions of land, such as the parish system of 1834. 'City of villages' is of course the motto of the City of Sydney, and describes the distinct localities and communities within the boundaries of the City. Although these areas are close together, they all maintain different communities and 'personalities'. Check out Chippendale, Darlinghurst, The Rocks, Wolloomooloo, Surry Hills, Millers Point, Darlington and Ultimo, for some of the ups and downs of inner city living.

We also have articles on some of the smaller localities, like East Circular Quay, Haymarket and Broadway, as well as city treasures like the Royal Botanic Gardens, Chinese Gardens and Hyde Park. You can also find out about Sydney's three separate Chinatowns. Probably next to be developed was the area now known as the Inner West. Growing up along the road south, the New Town grew out of a collection of farming villages, and suburbs such as Enmore, Stanmore, and Annandale sprang up, followed by Marrickville, Sydenham and Dulwich Hill. These days, what is considered Inner West is growing, encompassing suburbs as diverse as Rozelle to the north, and Croydon and Haberfield to the west. The Shire, to Sydney's south, is an area where local identification maps closely to the administrative structure, as Sutherland Shire Council is the local government authority. But coming from 'the Shire' is about more than local government. Find out more about Sutherland, Jannali, Como and  Engadine, in this beautiful part of Sydney.

All our suburb pages ( more than 600!) include census demographics for each suburb, and more than 150 have a full entry and pictures as well as a map. It's a great way to explore parts of Sydney you aren't familiar with yet, or to revisit old haunts. Come back for more of Sydney's regions  here later in the week.

Epidemics have been a fact of human life at least since the invention of agriculture, when people first started to live in large stationary groups and in close quarters with animals, enabling new diseases to develop and spread. It seems likely that Aboriginal people in Australia experienced far less of this devastating kind of disease, because of their small groups, their mobility, and their island home, but it soon became obvious that they had less resistance to European diseases than the Europeans who brought the germs to Sydney. From the first European settlement, epidemics became part of Sydney life, as they were part of town and city life elsewhere in the world. Garry Wotherspoon's essay on Epidemics sets out some of the continuities in the ways each epidemic was viewed and tackled by Sydney's people and governing bodies, and also the changes in attitude that led to new approaches. It was not until after World War II that the invention of new drugs and vaccines lessened the danger of many epidemic diseases, although new ones continue to emerge.

Sydney's first epidemic more than decimated Aboriginal population in 1789. Survivors, such as Nanbarry, Colebee and others, had to make their way in a world completely changed by the loss of so many of its people and stories. Arabanoo, who later died of the disease, was taken to look for his friends in May 1789, and was horrified by the number of bodies found on the harbour shores. The disease itself, at this distance of time, is not known for sure, although it is believed to have been smallpox, and it left similar scars. Certainly, it did not seem to affect the colonists nearly as acutely as the Aboriginal people. Bennelong told Arthur Phillip that it had killed half of the Aboriginal people, but no Europeans died.

Smallpox was to visit Sydney again several times, causing panic in 1881-2, when it whipped up anti-Chinese feeling and led to draconian measures against those infected and their families and contacts. The epidemic and the mistakes made in trying to contain it, led to the establishment of the Coast Hospital, later Prince Henry, on a then isolated headland south of the city, as a specialised hospital for infectious diseases. An outbreak of bubonic plague in 1900 did not kill very many people, but had a huge effect on the city itself, as it led to a frenzy of cleaning, painting, and eventually demolition of 'slum' housing in the old port areas of Millers Point and The Rocks. Much of the Photographic albums of the plague in The Rocks, Sydney, 1900 / under the supervision of Mr George McCredie ; [photographed by John Degotardi Jr.] 1900 SLNSWhttp://acms.sl.nsw.gov.au/item/itemdetailpaged.aspx?itemid=413649target="_blank">photographic record of these areas was taken as a result of the plague, and the epidemic led to  new interest in town planning, and increased government control over development.

Scarlet fever, measles and influenza also caused epidemics of varying severity, with the Spanish Flu of 1919 adding its misery to the aftermath of World War I all around the globe. Public places, schools, cinemas, dance halls and the university closed, and makeshift hospitals sprang up around the city, including at the Showground, and the Deaf and Dumb Institute . In New South Wales more than 6,000 people died of the flu, and it's been estimated that more than 40% of Sydney's population were sufferers at some time during 1919. Most devastatingly for the city, more than half of the deaths were people aged between 20 and 39, in the prime of their lives and many leaving children behind them. The NSW Public Health Bulletin published a fascinating article about the epidemic by  Peter Curson and Kevin McCracken in 2006. Other diseases such as TB and polio remained endemic throughout the first half of the twentieth century, until they were eventually defeated by vaccination and other public health measures. It wasn't until the 1980s, when HIV/AIDS emerged, as a new disease, that the fear and prejudice so often inspired by epidemic disease re-emerged in Sydney, including in the media. This time, though, the response of the targeted community was quite different, and it can be argued that the emergence of Sydney's vital gay and lesbian culture, epitomised by the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, was certainly influenced by these events. Epidemic disease helped shape Sydney's built environment, hospitals and public health system, and the attitudes of Sydney's citizens over time. As the flu season draws near, let's hope that these frightening epidemics are firmly in the past. Remember, if you feel sick, stay home!

One of Sydney's most interesting and important reformers was Maybanke Anderson, also known as Mrs Wolstenholme, and born Maybanke Selfe in England in 1845.  She was to become one of the best known women in Sydney, giving 'freely her time, strength, and sympathy, to every movement to ameliorate conditions for women and children', and above all, for women's rights.

She knew the hardships of being without rights from personal experience. Her first marriage, to  Edmund Wolstenholme in 1867, was not a success -- four of their children died as babies of TB, and Edmund took to drink. Maybanke kept a boarding hourse and later a girls' school, to support the family, but Edmund's desertion and alcoholism made this doubly difficult -- as a married woman she had no rights to her earnings or her children, and the only ground of divorce was adultery, which was difficult (and shameful) to prove. An absent, drunken husband could turn up periodically and demand all the household money as his own under the law. It was not until Sir Alfred Stephen's long deferred Divorce Extension and Amendment Act finally passed in 1892 that women could initiate divorce on grounds of desertion, habitual drunkenness, imprisonment for at least seven years or assault. Maybanke immediately instituted proceedings. From the early 1890s she had become interested in and active in the suffrage question, working with Louisa Lawson, Rose Scott, Dora Montefiore and many others in the Womanhood Suffrage League, and training herself as a public speaker. In 1893 she founded The Woman's Voice, a newspaper that advocated feminist causes, and helped found the Kindergarten Union of NSW, designed to help the youngest of the poor. She came from a remarkable family -- her brother was Norman Selfe, visionary engineer and inventor, whose energetic advocacy of technical education in Sydney, led to the foundation of the Sydney Technical College, among other things. Some years after her divorce, she married Francis Anderson, professor of Logic and Philosophy at  the University of Sydney and a reformer in his own right. They worked together on educational issues, and Maybanke became a prolific writer, producing reports, pamphlets, local histories, childcare manuals, and even songs. The author of our article on Maybanke Anderson is Jan Roberts, author of a full biography of Maybanke and an expert on her life and times. She is speaking about Maybanke's remarkable career at the Sydney Mechanics' School of Arts on Tuesday 17 May at 12.30. Find out more here, and come along!

In the school holidays, working in the city gains a pleasurable dimension from the presence of kids, freed from school attendance for a short time, and able to roam their town, whether with their parents or alone (if they are older). The Dictionary's article on Children surveys the history of childhood in Sydney, and the changes that have taken place over the years, in attitudes, as well as in physical surroundings. The Aboriginal children of the Sydney region learnt through story and song, and by hunting, fishing and making with their elders, while travelling and learning their country. Some, like Nanbarry, survived the horrific epidemic that followed first contact, and went on to learn European ways as well. For the first European children of the settlement, almost 50 of whom arrived on the First Fleet with their parents, the unfamiliar surroundings must have been both exhilarating and dangerous, and the hunger and disease of the early years were particularly  hard on children. There were many orphans and abandoned children, whose plight inspired the founding of the  Female and Male Orphan Schools, the Native Institution, and other organisations, often with very mixed results. Maria Lock, an Aboriginal girl who topped the examinations in 1819, aged 11, was perhaps the Institition's most resounding academic success. By the 1860s an influx of new settlers brought by the gold rushes had increased the proportion of children, and half of Sydney's population was under 12. Schooling became an urgent political issue, and politicians such as Sir Henry Parkes based their careers on the question of education, and the provision of public schooling. The issues raised in those early days continue to resonate in Sydney's educational history as outlined in the Dictionary's article on Education.  Public schools dotted Sydney's new suburbs from the 1880s, as communities united to petition the colonial government for education for their children, and school education became compulsory under the Public Instruction Act of 1880.

Being a kid is more than just school, and Sydney's children were much freer in past decades to roam the streets. Sometimes derided as 'street ruffians' or urchins, children also had important economic roles to play in helping to support their families through hawking, chores and other part-time work. A less densely developed city also provided space to play, well into the twentieth century. Garry Wotherspoon recalls growing up in Maroubra in the 1940s, and describes a sort of informal adventure playground complete with aircraft wreckage and quicksand. Many of these spaces were later lost to suburban development and council-administered parks, providing safer, but less exciting, recreation. Today, Sydney's children make up only 20 per cent of the population and lead a more supervised and safer life than their earlier counterparts, in a society that is arguably more child-focussed than ever before. Enjoy Term 2!

With Anzac Day falling on the same weekend as Easter this year, there are lots of entries in the Dictionary which explore some of the many Sydney traditions which will be marked over the next few days.

The Royal Easter Show at Homebush is the nation's largest annual event, attended by over 900,000 people. The relocation of the Show from Moore Park to Homebush in 1998 wasn't the first time the venue had changed. The Agricultural Society of New South Wales held its first show at Parramatta in 1823, with prizes for rams, cheeses and beer as well as high performing servants (probably no showbags though). By 1869 the four day event known as the Metropolitan Inter-Colonial Exhibition was being held in Prince Alfred Park, before moving to Moore Park in 1882. Apart from their annual pilgrimage to Homebush, many Sydneysiders will also be attending church to celebrate the Christian festival of Easter. The buildings in which they worship can say a lot about the history and traditions of their faith, which you can read about in the Christian Church Architecture entry. On Monday, Anzac Day will be observed across Australian and New Zealand. The parade in Sydney will begin at Martin Place after the dawn service at the Cenotaph. The Cenotaph is only one of the landmarks in Sydney that commemorates the Anzacs. The Anzac War Memorial in Hyde Park, Sydney's official monument to the war dead, was opened in 1934, and the Anzac Bridge was opened in 1995, while other monuments in suburbs across the city mark their communities' losses.

Apart from the games of two-up, another Anzac Day tradition, the rugby league Test match between Australia and New Zealand, will also take place, this year on the Gold Coast. Players from either side of the Tasman have been competing since the code was developed, when an All-Maori team toured Sydney in 1908 & 1909 to promote the game, though this didn't end well for the Maori players. Why not hop around the Dictionary this long weekend and see what else you can find?

The Dictionary is the sum of contributions by authors (over 150 of them so far), artists (photographers and painters mostly, so far), institutions (many of them national treasures), and companies such as Airview who have kindly allowed us to use their wonderful aerial photos. Being such a generous and talented bunch, our contributors usually have other irons in the fire. Here's a shout out to some of them.

Louise Hawson, whose work illustrates several Dictionary articles, has a book out from University of New South Wales Press in May and an exhibition at the Museum of Sydney from May 14. Both are based on her quest to photograph a suburb a week for a year, and she certainly found beauty in some surprising places. You can see her work at her blog, 52 suburbs, and pre-order the book here.

Mark St Leon, author of Circus, has a new book on Australian circus out from Melbourne Books in May, which you can pre-order here. Mark's work has featured on the blog before, and you should check out some of the film he provided for his Dictionary article, including Con Colleano on the tightwire in 1939,  and his own family, the Five Riding St Leons. More film and many wonderful still images from Mark's collection appear in the Circus article.

Danny Huynh, whose vivid and fascinating photographs enrich a number of Dictionary articles about Sydney's varied cultural communities,  has an exhibition, titled Pride and Passion: Photographic Portraits of Fairfield, on now at the  Fairfield City Museum and Gallery until May 15. Last but not least, our colleague, Laila Ellmoos, historian with the City of Sydney History program, received two highly commended awards in the 2011 National Trust Heritage Awards, for three publications she wrote and edited while she was at the Government Architect's Office. Along with another prolific author, Mark Dunn, Laila writes the blog Scratching Sydney's Surface, and both of them appear regularly on Fbi Radio, live at 8.15 on Fridays, and streamed on the net. The Dictionary is very lucky to have so many wonderful contributors. Wishing them every success is the least we can do!

One of the strengths of the Dictionary is our wide and varied coverage of Sydney's theatre history. Much of this can be credited to an indefatigable contributor, Ailsa McPherson.  Ailsa's survey article outlines the history of theatrical production in Sydney from before the ships of the First Fleet arrived -- there was a show put on by the convicts aboard the Scarborough on 2 January 1788, 'with many songs'.

She has also written about some of Sydney theatre's outstanding personalities, such as George Rignold, Harry Rickards and, in the twentieth century, Doris Fitton.  Entrepreneur Barnett Levey and designer Phil Goatcher also strut the Dictionary's stage. Sydney's lost theatres are well represented too. Many burnt down, in the days of candle and gas lighting, and fire was a constant hazard. The Prince of Wales theatre, in Castlereagh Street, burnt down in 1860, when it was only 5 years old. A new Prince of Wales theatre was built on the same site, opening in 1863, but it too was destroyed by fire in 1872. A new theatre, this time called the Theatre Royal, was built there and opened in 1875. It survived a fire in 1892, and remained in use as a theatre until it was consumed by the fire of Sydney's development in the 1970s, when it was demolished as part of the MLC centre development. The new Theatre Royal, designed by Harry Seidler, was built into the basement of the complex.

Most Sydney theatre names have been applied to more than one theatre. There have been a number of Her Majesty's theatres, one destroyed by fire in 1902, another built on the same site (redeveloped for Centrepoint in the 1970s and most recently rebuilt as Westfield Sydney), and a third in Quay street near Haymarket, which burnt down in 1970 and was replaced by another Her Majesty's, later called the Empire. All these articles and entries are connected to many more, so have a look and bounce around. Remember there's a contact link on the bottom of every page, so let us know your thoughts.

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Celebrations, rituals and ceremonies have always been important parts of life in this place, even before it was called Sydney. The many carvings, clearings, and ceremonial sites in the Sydney basin show that the Aboriginal people had a full calendar of celebrations and ceremonies , but little detailed knowledge survived the invasion.

In 1795, after the disastrous smallpox epidemic and large-scale dispossession had caused death and dislocation among the clans of the Eora and Dharug people, those who were left attempted to keep their rituals going with an initiation ceremony for young men, held at Woccanmagully, which the settlers called Farm Cove. There was much singing, dancing and ceremony, and preparing a large clear oval ground for the ceremony took some days. Among the participants were Nanbarry, an initiate, and Pemulwuy and Colebee, who were sponsors. Another initiate, Caruey, will be included in the Dictionary with a biography in May. Described by David Collins, the ceremony involved knocking out a front tooth. An illustration from Collins's 1798 book showed Nanbarry's uncle Colebee soothing his sore mouth with a grilled fish. Ceremonies such as this were still held in areas close to Sydney, such as Lake Macquarie, well into the nineteenth century and possibly later. Val Attenbrow's book Sydney's Aboriginal Past: Investigating the Archaeological and Historical Records, published in a second edition in 2010 by University of New South Wales Press, is  a good source of information. The settlers developed celebrations of their own as the colony grew, and one of the first was Anniversary Day, 26 January. Anne Coote has written for us about the ways in which the settlers remembered the foundation of the colony, and how the celebrations changed over the nineteenth century.

Governor Macquarie celebrated Anniversary Day with extravagance on the thirtieth anniversary in 1818, with a dinner, ball and a holiday for government employed convicts. Elite free settlers continued to note the Anniversary with dinners and speeches, but it did not become a popular holiday until mid-century, when regattas, picnics and entertainment were chosen recreations for government and private employees who were given a holiday. Evening entertainments included Anniversary Day concerts, plays and tableaux. The other colonies celebrated their foundations on different days and it was not until well into the twentieth century that Australia Day, as it came to be called, was a national celebration. Stay tuned for more on Sydney's big celebrations in posts to come.