The Gold Coast drew more people from Sydney and Melbourne than from Brisbane. Where Australians who left the capitals went.
About 407,000 people living in regional towns at the 2021 Census had lived in a capital city five years earlier. The Gold Coast took 29,101 from Sydney and Melbourne and 24,517 from Brisbane. In Warragul and Drouin, one resident in five had lived in Melbourne. The towns that took the most, and the largest shares.
The Census asks every resident where they lived five years earlier. At the 2021 Census, about 407,000 people living in a regional town had lived in one of the eight capital cities in 2016.
Most of them did not go far. But the single biggest destination drew most of its city arrivals from interstate.
The Gold Coast drew more from Sydney and Melbourne than from Brisbane
The Gold Coast, counted with Tweed Heads across the border, took more people from the capitals than anywhere else in regional Australia:
| Lived in 2016 | Living on the Gold Coast in 2021 |
|---|---|
| Brisbane | 24,517 |
| Sydney | 18,813 |
| Melbourne | 10,288 |
| Adelaide | 2,075 |
| Perth | 2,013 |
| Canberra | 1,604 |
| Darwin | 1,040 |
| Hobart | 848 |
Brisbane is an hour up the highway, and it is still the largest single source. But Sydney and Melbourne together sent 29,101, and the seven other capitals together sent 36,681. The Gold Coast was the first regional choice for people leaving Canberra and Darwin, and the second for people leaving Melbourne, Adelaide and Hobart.
The Sunshine Coast came close to the same split: 20,437 from Brisbane and 20,210 from the other seven capitals together.
Where people from each capital went
Apart from the Gold Coast, most people who left a capital moved to a town within a couple of hours of it:
| Left | Top regional destinations (2021 residents who lived in that capital in 2016) |
|---|---|
| Sydney | Central Coast 27,053 · Gold Coast 18,813 · Wollongong 17,089 |
| Melbourne | Geelong 24,929 · Gold Coast 10,288 · Warragul and Drouin 7,444 |
| Brisbane | Gold Coast 24,517 · Sunshine Coast 20,437 · Toowoomba 5,638 |
| Adelaide | Victor Harbor and Goolwa 3,354 · Gold Coast 2,075 · Sunshine Coast 1,070 |
| Perth | Busselton 3,708 · Bunbury 3,255 · Karratha 2,052 |
| Canberra | Gold Coast 1,604 · Newcastle 1,152 · Sunshine Coast 1,071 |
| Hobart | Launceston 1,114 · Gold Coast 848 · Sunshine Coast 381 |
| Darwin | Gold Coast 1,040 · Sunshine Coast 844 · Townsville 730 |
The ABS includes the Central Coast in Greater Sydney. We treat it as a town of its own: the 27,053 people who moved to the Central Coast from the rest of Greater Sydney count as leaving Sydney, and people who moved away from the Central Coast do not.
The towns where city leavers are the largest share
Counts favour big places. As a share of residents, the picture changes:
| Town | Lived in a capital five years earlier | Share of residents |
|---|---|---|
| Warragul and Drouin (Vic) | 7,764 | 19.4% |
| Karratha (WA) | 2,570 | 16.6% |
| Bowral and Mittagong (NSW) | 6,349 | 16.1% |
| Port Hedland (WA) | 2,069 | 14.9% |
| Byron Bay (NSW) | 1,530 | 14.7% |
| Victor Harbor and Goolwa (SA) | 3,992 | 14.5% |
| Castlemaine (Vic) | 1,422 | 13.1% |
| Broome (WA) | 1,682 | 12.4% |
| Ulladulla (NSW) | 1,964 | 12.1% |
| Airlie Beach and Cannonvale (Qld) | 1,556 | 11.3% |
Towns of 10,000 people or more. Share of residents aged five and over, who are the ones the Census asks about.
Warragul and Drouin, about 100 km east of Melbourne on the Gippsland line, stand out: 7,444 of their residents had lived in Melbourne five years earlier, nearly one in five. Of everyone who moved there from elsewhere in Australia, 43% came from Melbourne. In Bowral and Mittagong, in the Southern Highlands, 38% of arrivals from elsewhere in Australia came from Sydney.
Karratha, Port Hedland and Broome are a different story. They are Pilbara and Kimberley towns whose populations turn over with mining and government jobs, so a high share from Perth there is a sign of work, not a move for lifestyle.
Suburb by suburb, the same Census question ranks the places where the largest share of residents had lived in a capital: see the lists for NSW, Victoria and Queensland, and for each regional city.
What this does not show
Only one direction. These are people who moved from a capital to a regional town. People who moved the other way are not counted, so none of this is net migration: a town can draw thousands from Melbourne and send as many back.
Five years, and part of a pandemic. The window runs from August 2016 to August 2021. It includes the first year and a half of COVID-19, but the Census cannot say when in those five years anyone moved.
Small numbers are rough. The ABS randomly adjusts every cell to protect privacy, so small counts can be off by a few people either way.
How we did this
From the ABS 2021 Census TableBuilder, we counted people by the Significant Urban Area they lived in on Census night 2021 and the area they lived in five years earlier. Significant Urban Areas are towns and cities of 10,000 people or more, which leaves out smaller towns and rural areas. A capital is its Greater Capital City area, built from the statistical areas inside it, with the Central Coast treated as a town of its own, as explained above. Bacchus Marsh and Gisborne are left out because they sit inside Greater Melbourne. Shares are of residents aged five and over. ABS data is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0.