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Roots Earth in Sydney: audio stories about 50 places

Roots Earth has audio stories about 50 places in Sydney, Australia, in Oceania. The Sydney stories are in all seven Roots Earth languages: English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian. The app needs no account: open Sydney, pick a place on the city's map of places and play. Download a city's audio, then it plays without a connection. The stories are written by local people.

The 50 places are listed below in the order the app shows them, and again further down with their coordinates. The lists were taken from the Roots Earth catalogue on 15 September 2026.

Published 16 September 2026. Markdown: sydney.md

The 50 places in Sydney with audio stories

In the order the app shows them.

  1. Sydney Opera House
  2. Sydney Harbour Bridge
  3. The Rocks
  4. Royal Botanic Garden, Sydney
  5. St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney
  6. Queen Victoria Building
  7. Sydney Tower
  8. Hyde Park, Sydney
  9. Art Gallery of New South Wales
  10. Australian Museum
  11. Museum of Contemporary Art Australia
  12. Sydney Town Hall
  13. Government House, Sydney
  14. Darling Harbour
  15. Hyde Park Barracks
  16. St Andrew's Cathedral, Sydney
  17. Anzac Memorial
  18. Customs House, Sydney
  19. Martin Place
  20. State Library of New South Wales
  21. Parliament House, Sydney
  22. St James' Church, Sydney
  23. Sydney Observatory
  24. Mrs Macquarie's Chair
  25. Fort Denison
  26. Garrison Church, Sydney
  27. Australian National Maritime Museum
  28. Sydney Conservatorium of Music
  29. Great Synagogue
  30. Chinese Garden of Friendship
  31. Macquarie Lighthouse
  32. Luna Park Sydney
  33. Capitol Theatre, Sydney
  34. Bondi Beach
  35. Paddington
  36. Newtown
  37. Surry Hills
  38. Glebe
  39. Manly
  40. Watsons Bay
  41. Balmain
  42. Kings Cross
  43. Sydney Fish Market
  44. Chinatown, Sydney
  45. Rookwood Cemetery
  46. Centennial Park
  47. Camperdown Cemetery
  48. Carriageworks
  49. White Rabbit Gallery
  50. University of Sydney

Is there an audio guide for Sydney Opera House?

Yes. Sydney Opera House has its audio stories in the Roots Earth app: a short introduction and a deeper story, in English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian.

It is place 1 of the 50 Sydney places in the app, at -33.85681, 151.21514. Every one of the other 49 places in the list above has the same two stories.

Roots Earth is not a guided tour: you choose the place on the city's map of places and play its story yourself.

How to use Roots Earth in Sydney

Open Roots Earth and choose Sydney. The city has its own map of places with all 50 of them on it. Tap the place you are standing in front of, or any other, and play its short introduction or its deeper story. You decide what to listen to and in which order.

You can listen in English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian, and there is no account. Download a city's audio, then it plays without a connection.

In full

All 50 places in Sydney, in the app's order, with their coordinates.

All 50 places in Sydney, with coordinates

Every place below has a short introduction and a deeper story in the Roots Earth app, in English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian. The names, the coordinates (latitude, longitude) and the one line descriptions are the app's own catalogue values of 15 September 2026; a place without a line here has none that this page can print.

1. Sydney Opera House

Coordinates
-33.85681, 151.21514
In one line
Sydney's white-sailed performing arts centre crowns Bennelong Point. Designed by Danish architect Jørn Utzon and opened in 1973, its tiled concrete shells became a UNESCO World Heritage landmark and one of the 20th century's defining buildings.

2. Sydney Harbour Bridge

Coordinates
-33.85222, 151.21056
In one line
Sydney's great steel arch links the city to the north shore across the harbour. Opened in 1932 and nicknamed the Coathanger, its 503-metre arch span and granite pylons make it one of the world's largest steel arch bridges.

3. The Rocks

Coordinates
-33.85985, 151.20901
In one line
Sydney's oldest neighbourhood spreads across Gadigal land beside the harbour. Settled by Europeans from 1788, its sandstone laneways, convict-era cottages and historic pubs survived plague, demolition and a famous 1970s union campaign that saved them.

4. Royal Botanic Garden, Sydney

Coordinates
-33.86389, 151.21694
In one line
Australia's oldest botanic garden wraps the harbour shore at Farm Cove. Founded in 1816 by Governor Macquarie on the colony's first farm, its 30 hectares hold rare plants, heritage trees and sweeping views toward the Opera House.

5. St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney

Coordinates
-33.87111, 151.21333
In one line
The mother church of Catholic Australia rises in golden sandstone near Hyde Park. Built from 1866 to a Gothic Revival design by William Wardell, its twin spires were finally completed in 2000, more than a century later.

6. Queen Victoria Building

Coordinates
-33.87176, 151.20667
In one line
A grand Romanesque Revival shopping arcade fills an entire city block. Built between 1893 and 1898 to George McRae's design as a market hall, the Queen Victoria Building survived near-demolition and now dazzles beneath its great central dome.

7. Sydney Tower

Coordinates
-33.8704, 151.2089
In one line
Sydney's tallest structure spikes the skyline with a golden turret.

8. Hyde Park, Sydney

Coordinates
-33.87333, 151.21139
In one line
Opened by Governor Macquarie in 1810, Hyde Park is Australia's oldest public parkland. Its 16 hectares hold a famous avenue of fig trees, the Archibald Fountain, and the Anzac Memorial at the southern end.

10. Australian Museum

Coordinates
-33.8743, 151.2134
In one line
Founded in 1827, the Australian Museum is the nation's oldest museum. Behind its Victorian sandstone facade on College Street lie natural history collections, dinosaur skeletons, minerals, and rich First Nations galleries devoted to Aboriginal and Pacific cultures.

11. Museum of Contemporary Art Australia

Coordinates
-33.86, 151.2089
In one line
Australia's leading contemporary art museum occupies the Art Deco former Maritime Services Board building at Circular Quay, completed in 1952. Opened as a museum in 1991 and expanded in 2012, it holds strong Australian and Aboriginal collections, with a rooftop café overlooking the harbour.

12. Sydney Town Hall

Coordinates
-33.873235, 151.206323
In one line
Built between 1869 and 1889 in ornate Victorian Second Empire style, Sydney Town Hall is the city's grand civic building. Its sandstone clock tower, marble vestibule, and the cavernous Centennial Hall, home to a celebrated Grand Organ, anchor the corner of George and Druitt Streets.

13. Government House, Sydney

Coordinates
-33.859919, 151.215008
In one line
Built between 1837 and 1845 to designs by English architect Edward Blore, Government House is the vice-regal residence of the Governor of New South Wales. A castellated Gothic Revival mansion above the Royal Botanic Garden, it overlooks the harbour and opens its gardens to visitors.

14. Darling Harbour

Coordinates
-33.8723, 151.19896
In one line
Once a working port and railway goods yard, Darling Harbour was transformed in the 1980s into a waterside leisure and cultural precinct. Around Cockle Bay it gathers the National Maritime Museum, an aquarium, the Chinese Garden of Friendship, and the historic Pyrmont Bridge.

15. Hyde Park Barracks

Coordinates
-33.86961, 151.21281
In one line
A Georgian brick barracks of 1819, designed by convict architect Francis Greenway to house transported men. Later an immigration depot and asylum, it is now a World Heritage museum of Australia's convict past.

16. St Andrew's Cathedral, Sydney

Coordinates
-33.873923, 151.206336
In one line
Australia's oldest cathedral, consecrated in 1868 beside the Town Hall. Designed by Edmund Blacket in Gothic Revival sandstone with twin western towers, it holds the country's largest church organ and a choir tradition reaching back to the 1820s.

17. Anzac Memorial

Coordinates
-33.87556, 151.21083
In one line
Sydney's principal First World War memorial, built between 1932 and 1934 in striking Art Deco. Designed by Bruce Dellit with sculpture by Rayner Hoff, its domed Hall of Memory glitters with 120,000 gilded stars above a mirror-still reflecting pool.

18. Customs House, Sydney

Coordinates
-33.862195, 151.210885
In one line
A grand sandstone landmark at Circular Quay, first built in 1845 and expanded by James Barnet. For over a century it governed the colony's customs and trade. Today it is a city library, famous for the scale model of Sydney beneath its glass floor.

19. Martin Place

Coordinates
-33.86777, 151.21
In one line
Sydney's civic heart, a 473-metre street completed in 1935 after its first section opened in 1892 and pedestrianised in stages from 1971 to 1979. Lined with grand banks and James Barnet's General Post Office, it holds the Cenotaph war memorial and hosts the city's Anzac Day dawn service each year.

20. State Library of New South Wales

Coordinates
-33.866389, 151.213333
In one line
Australia's oldest library, founded in 1826. Its sandstone Mitchell Wing opened in 1910 to hold a vast Australiana bequest, and its vestibule floor reproduces the Tasman Map in marble mosaic. The collection holds First Fleet journals and Captain Cook's papers.

21. Parliament House, Sydney

Coordinates
-33.86739, 151.21269
In one line
The oldest parliament building in Australia, begun in 1811 and completed in 1816 as a wing of the convict-built Rum Hospital. Its colonial Georgian verandah fronts Macquarie Street, sheltering two chambers, one of them a cast-iron hall once destined for the Victorian goldfields.

22. St James' Church, Sydney

Coordinates
-33.86889, 151.2125
In one line
Designed by convict architect Francis Greenway and consecrated in 1824, St James' is Sydney's oldest surviving church. Its slender copper spire and austere Georgian brickwork conceal a richly ornamented Anglo-Catholic interior near Hyde Park.

23. Sydney Observatory

Coordinates
-33.8596, 151.2047
In one line
Built between 1857 and 1859 on Observatory Hill, this sandstone Italianate landmark once kept Sydney's official time. Its tower still drops a time ball at one o'clock each day, and it now serves as a working museum of astronomy.

24. Mrs Macquarie's Chair

Coordinates
-33.859467, 151.222203
In one line
Carved from sandstone by convicts in 1810, this bench on a harbour peninsula was shaped for Elizabeth Macquarie, the governor's wife. Tradition holds she sat here watching for ships from Britain, commanding sweeping views toward Fort Denison and the harbour.

25. Fort Denison

Coordinates
-33.8549, 151.2255
In one line
Once a bleak penal rock called Pinchgut, this harbour island was fortified during Crimean War invasion fears and completed in 1857. Its sandstone Martello tower, the only one in Australia, still guards the harbour, firing a daily one o'clock gun.

26. Garrison Church, Sydney

Coordinates
-33.8581, 151.2059
In one line
Begun in 1840 in Millers Point, Holy Trinity was Australia's first military church, where imperial troops once paraded. Built of Argyle Cut sandstone in Gothic Revival style, it carries regimental colours and a celebrated chancel window, and educated a future prime minister.

27. Australian National Maritime Museum

Coordinates
-33.869167, 151.198611
In one line
Opened in 1991 at Darling Harbour, this national museum tells Australia's seafaring story beneath a sail-shaped roof by architect Philip Cox. Visitors can board real vessels, including the destroyer Vampire, the submarine Onslow and a replica of Cook's Endeavour.

28. Sydney Conservatorium of Music

Coordinates
-33.863455, 151.214353
In one line
Built in 1817 to 1821 as the castellated stables for Government House, this Francis Greenway landmark near the Royal Botanic Garden became a music conservatorium in 1915. Now part of the University of Sydney, its battlemented towers crown one of the city's great music schools.

29. Great Synagogue

Coordinates
-33.87265, 151.20947
In one line
Consecrated in 1878, the Great Synagogue is the spiritual home of Sydney's oldest Jewish congregation. Designed by Thomas Rowe in a richly eclectic Victorian style, its sandstone façade and star-spangled ceiling crown Elizabeth Street.

30. Chinese Garden of Friendship

Coordinates
-33.8765, 151.2028
In one line
Opened in 1988, the Chinese Garden of Friendship is a Cantonese-style classical garden in Darling Harbour. Designed in partnership with Sydney's sister city Guangzhou, its lake, pavilions, and waterfalls celebrate the bond between China and Australia.

31. Macquarie Lighthouse

Coordinates
-33.853944, 151.285167
In one line
Australia's first lighthouse, first lit in 1818 to a design by convict architect Francis Greenway.

32. Luna Park Sydney

Coordinates
-33.8476, 151.21
In one line
Opened in 1935 at Milsons Point, Luna Park Sydney is a heritage-listed Art Deco amusement park beneath the Harbour Bridge. Its giant grinning Face entrance and rare 1930s Coney Island funhouse have welcomed thrill-seekers for generations.

33. Capitol Theatre, Sydney

Coordinates
-33.879675, 151.206744
In one line
Opened in 1928, the Capitol Theatre in Haymarket is Australia's finest surviving atmospheric picture palace. Designed by Henry Eli White and John Eberson, its auditorium mimics an Italian garden beneath a domed ceiling of twinkling stars.

34. Bondi Beach

Coordinates
-33.891111, 151.274167
In one line
Bondi Beach is Sydney's most famous stretch of sand, a kilometre of surf seven kilometres from the city. Home to the world's first surf lifesaving club, founded in 1907, it blends beach culture, the Icebergs pool, and easygoing crowds.

35. Paddington

Coordinates
-33.88477, 151.22621
In one line
Paddington is a Victorian inner-Sydney suburb famed for its terraced houses trimmed with iron lacework. Three kilometres from the city, its leafy streets, Oxford Street boutiques, and Saturday markets blend heritage charm with lively neighbourhood life.

36. Newtown

Coordinates
-33.89, 151.18
In one line
Newtown is an inner-west Sydney suburb strung along King Street, one of Australia's most complete Victorian and Federation shopping strips. Once denigrated as a slum, it became a creative, multicultural and LGBTQ heartland known for music, street art and food.

37. Surry Hills

Coordinates
-33.886111, 151.211111
In one line
Surry Hills is an inner Sydney suburb of Victorian terraces named after Surrey in England. Once a crowded working-class quarter known for the rag trade and razor gangs, it is now a gentrified district famous for cafés, restaurants and design along Crown Street.

38. Glebe

Coordinates
-33.87978, 151.18541
In one line
Glebe is an inner-west Sydney suburb on land once owned by the Anglican Church, from which it takes its name. Its leafy streets of Victorian terraces, the cafés and bookshops of Glebe Point Road, and its university links give it a relaxed, bohemian character.

39. Manly

Coordinates
-33.7962, 151.2827
In one line
Manly is a seaside suburb on Sydney's Northern Beaches, named by Governor Phillip in 1788. Developed as a resort from the 1850s and reached by ferry across the harbour, it is famous for its ocean beach, pine-lined promenade, the Corso and a long surf-lifesaving heritage.

40. Watsons Bay

Coordinates
-33.84167, 151.28167
In one line
Watsons Bay is a harbourside village near South Head, named after harbour pilot Robert Watson. Once an isolated fishing settlement, it is known for the dramatic Gap cliffs, Camp Cove, Macquarie Lighthouse, the Dunbar shipwreck of 1857, and its seafood and ferry.

41. Balmain

Coordinates
-33.85895, 151.17906
In one line
Balmain is an inner-west Sydney peninsula named after colonial surgeon William Balmain. Once a gritty maritime and industrial centre of shipyards and docks, and a birthplace of the Australian Labor Party in 1891, it is now a gentrified suburb of terraces, pubs and ferries.

42. Kings Cross

Coordinates
-33.87373, 151.22357
In one line
Kings Cross is a dense inner-Sydney district renamed for King Edward VII in 1905. Famous for Art Deco apartments, a bohemian and artistic past, and a long era as a nightlife and red-light quarter, it is marked by the Coca-Cola sign and the El Alamein Fountain.

43. Sydney Fish Market

Coordinates
-33.872742, 151.192158
In one line
One of the world's largest seafood markets, trading on Blackwattle Bay in Pyrmont. Early morning auctions, dozens of species, and a working fishing port draw chefs, locals, and visitors to its busy waterfront stalls.

44. Chinatown, Sydney

Coordinates
-33.878781, 151.204081
In one line
Sydney's Chinatown centres on the Dixon Street mall in Haymarket, between Central Station and Darling Harbour. Ceremonial gates, late-night restaurants, Paddy's Markets, and the Golden Water Mouth sculpture mark one of the city's liveliest precincts.

45. Rookwood Cemetery

Coordinates
-33.874167, 151.054722
In one line
The largest necropolis in the Southern Hemisphere, opened in the 1860s at Rookwood, west of Sydney. Some 314 hectares hold close to a million burials across many faiths, once served by a dedicated funeral railway.

46. Centennial Park

Coordinates
-33.901111, 151.230278
In one line
A grand parkland in Sydney's eastern suburbs, opened in 1888 to mark a century of European settlement. Its ponds, tree-lined avenues, and wide lawns hosted the 1901 ceremony that founded the Commonwealth of Australia.

47. Camperdown Cemetery

Coordinates
-33.89889, 151.17944
In one line
A historic Newtown burial ground consecrated in 1849, set around Edmund Blacket's Gothic Revival Saint Stephen's Church. Its weathered sandstone graves hold colonial pioneers and victims of the 1857 Dunbar shipwreck.

48. Carriageworks

Coordinates
-33.8942, 151.1916
In one line
A vast contemporary arts venue in Redfern, set inside the Victorian-era Eveleigh Railway Workshops where carriages were once built. Since 2007 its cavernous halls host visual art, performance, and a popular weekly farmers market.

50. University of Sydney

Coordinates
-33.8875, 151.19
In one line
Founded in 1850, the University of Sydney is Australia's oldest university. Its neo-Gothic sandstone Quadrangle, whose Great Hall and East Range were designed by Edmund Blacket, anchors a lively campus on the old Grose Farm at Camperdown; the Great Hall was ready in 1859, and construction of the rest of the Quadrangle continued until 1966.

Roots Earth in short

Roots Earth has audio stories about 5,665 places in 130 cities, 25 countries and 6 regions, written by local people.

  • No account
  • Download a city's audio, then it plays without a connection
  • Audio stories in English and German in every city, and in Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian in 126 of the 130 cities

Roots Earth for Android is available on Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rootsearth.app.