Australia · State of New South Wales · Sydney
Newtown, Sydney — Area Guide & Where to Stay
Newtown is an inner-west suburb of Sydney, strung along King Street about four kilometres southwest of the city centre. Its long shopping strip is lined with pubs, live-music venues, bookshops and cheap places to eat, hung with street-art murals. The mood is bohemian. Victorian terraces line the side streets off the main road.
About Newtown
Where to stay in Newtown
Where you base yourself shapes the visit — here's the character of each area.
Newtown carries few hotels of its own, so most beds here are small guesthouses or short-stay rooms in converted terraces. Staying on or near King Street puts the pubs, live-music venues and late-night restaurants at your door, which suits a traveller who wants a night out rather than harbour views. Newtown station sits on the main suburban line, and Central is a short ride away.
Light sleepers should beware the noise. For a wide choice of large hotels, base yourself in central Sydney and come to Newtown for the evening.
About Newtown
What are the main landmarks in Newtown?
The strongest landmarks in Newtown are its churches. St Stephen's Anglican Church stands on Church Street, its grounds enclosing the historic Camperdown Cemetery, one of the oldest burial grounds still surviving in Sydney. On King Street, the Gothic Newtown Mission Uniting Church rises above the shopfronts.
Beyond these, the suburb's real draw is the run of street-art murals that covers walls and shutters the length of King Street. It is a place to walk rather than to tick off sights.
What is the history of Newtown?
Newtown grew in the nineteenth century as one of Sydney's earliest inner suburbs. It took its name from a store called New Town that traded on the road in the 1830s. The opening of the railway in 1855, with a station in the suburb, turned a scatter of estates into a dense grid of workers' terraces.
For decades it stayed a workers' suburb. From the later twentieth century, cheap rents drew students, artists and musicians, and the strip along King Street shifted toward the arts-and-nightlife character it keeps.
Where is Newtown?
Newtown lies in Sydney's inner west, built around King Street. The University of Sydney and Camperdown border it to the north, while Erskineville and St Peters sit to the south. Enmore Road branches off toward Stanmore.
King Street itself has long marked the dividing line between two of the city's councils.
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Updated July 2026