Illawarra
Wedged between beach and mountains, the Illawarra is a coastal region in the state of New South Wales. This chain of laidback beach towns, anchored by the city of Wollongong, has lots of outdoor recreation and a quieter pace of life than nearby Sydney.| Tap on a place to explore it |
Photo: Wikimedia, Public domain.
Essential Destinations
Top destinations include Wollongong and Budderoo National Park.
Wollongong
Photo: Maxim75, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Heading south, Wollongong starts where Sydney finishes. It is the third largest city in New South Wales behind Sydney and Newcastle and is thinly wedged on a coastal plain between an escarpment and the Pacific Ocean, in the Illawarra region.
Budderoo National Park
Photo: Maxim75, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Budderoo National Park is a national park in the Illawarra region of New South Wales, known for its waterfalls and rainforests in particular, Minnamurra – hence why you may hear Minnamurra more than Budderoo National Park.
Shellharbour
Shellharbour is a coastal city of 76,271 in between Wollongong and the Shoalhaven, in the Illawarra region of New South Wales halfway between Wollongong and Kiama.
Destinations to Discover
Explore places such as Kiama and Helensburgh.
Kiama
Photo: Wikimedia, Public domain.
Kiama is the beachside city in the Illawarra region, south of Wollongong. With the area established with farming, it has been a tourist destination for day trips and weekends from Sydney for over a century.
Helensburgh
Photo: Maxim75, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Helensburgh is a small town, located 45 kilometres south of Sydney and 35 kilometres north of Wollongong and north and above the Illawarra escarpment and region.
Stanwell Park
Photo: Maxim75, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Stanwell Park is a northern suburb of Wollongong, the centre of the Illawarra region of New South Wales. The settlement is home to about 1400 people, a dormitory and satellite suburb for commuters to the nearby cities of Sydney and Wollongong, and a popular tourist destination.
Gerringong
Photo: Marku1988, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Gerringong is a town located about ten minutes drive south of Kiama, and about twenty minutes north of Nowra in the Illawarra region of New South Wales, Australia in the Municipality of Kiama.
Macquarie Pass National Park
Photo: Vakrieger, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Macquarie Pass National Park is a small national park along the Macquarie Pass at the border of the Illawarra and Southern Highlands regions of New South Wales.
Dharawal National Park
Photo: Maksym Kozlenko, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Dharawal National Park is a relatively unknown protected area in the Illawarra region of New South Wales. It is part of Dharawal country, where the park gets its name from.
Illawarra
- Type: Region with 409,000 residents
- Description: region in New South Wales, Australia
- Location: New South Wales, Australia, Oceania
- View on OpenStreetMap
This page is based on GeoNames, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons, and Wikivoyage.
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Satellite Map
Discover Illawarra from above in high-definition satellite imagery.
In Other Languages
From Arabic to Turkish—“Illawarra” goes by many names.
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About Mapcarta. Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license, except for photos, directions, and the map. Description text is based on the Wikivoyage page “Illawarra”. Photo: Wikimedia, CC BY 2.0.