Surry Hills - Definition

Surry Hills is a suburb in inner Sydney, Australia. To its west lies Central Station, to its north Darlinghurst, to its east Moore Park and to its south Redfern. It contains Australia Post's head office and Prince Alfred Park.

Once a working class Irish suburb, Surry Hills today is demographically characterisable as a mixture of relatively affluent newcomers who have gentrified the suburb, long-time residents and an enormous number of transients. The large number of hostels and other facilities for transients and the homeless in the area, particularly those provided by the Salvation Army, combined with the proximity to the centre of Sydney, mean that Surry Hills has the greatest concentration of such people in Australia.

Architecturally, Surry Hills is largely composed of Victorian terraced housing, but with some warehouses and several large developments of flats from the twentieth century in the west of the suburb.