From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Illawong is a suburb in southern Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Illawong is located 27km south of the Sydney Central Business District, in the local government area of the Sutherland Shire. The post code is 2234, which is also assigned to the contiguous suburbs of Menai, Bangor and Alfords Point.

Illawong comprises mainly of residential homes, including a nursing home and a small shopping centre. Residents are mostly working, middle-class families.

Contents 1 Schools 2 Churches 3 Scouts 4 History 5 References 6 External links

There are 3 schools in the suburb of Illawong: Illawong Primary School, Tharrawal Primary School and Menai High School, which is the major High School servicing the Menai Area.

There is one church in the suburb of Illawong: Illawong Uniting Church that meets in its own church halls which are adjacent to the Illawong Village Shopping Centre.

There is one Scout group in Illawong, 1st Wearne Bay Sea Scouts. They have all five youth sections (Joeys, Cubs, Scouts, Venturers and Rovers) represented within the group. The group meets in their hall at Wearne Bay, on the Georges River. This hall was previously the house of the old ferry master, who started the group.

Illawong is an Aboriginal word meaning between two waters, referring to the Georges and Woronora Rivers. Illawong was originally inhabited by the Tharawal and/or Eora tribes who left remnants of their lives in many middens, rock carvings and cave paintings.

Captain John Hunter (1731-1821) was the first European to explore the area. In 1789, Hunter sailed through the Georges and Woronora Rivers. In 1795-6, with Matthew Flinders and George Bass, Hunter explored further up the Georges River and declared the area of Bankstown.

Construction of Old Illawarra Road took place between 1843 to 1845 and was inspected by Major Thomas Mitchell, it being one of the last public works completed by convicts. The construction allowed the new route to be about 32 kilometres shorter towards the South Coast. At the southern end of the district Major Mitchell took the road across the ford at the head of the Woronora River, naming it the Ford "Pass of Sabugal", possibly due to the resemblance in scenery of the north-eastern frontier of Portugal.

In the 1890s Menai was a farming area and Illawong, then known as East Menai, was an area where wealthy people of Sydney built holiday homes and weekenders. This area was ravaged in the 1994 bushfires, the same fires that caused destruction in the suburbs of Alfords Point, Menai and Como. Illawong is considered to be a "bushfire prone" area within the Sutherland Shire.

• The Book of Sydney Suburbs, Compiled by Frances Pollen, Angus & Robertson Publishers, 1990, Published in Australia ISBN 0-207-14495-8

Coordinates: -34.00057° 151.03587°

• Maps and aerial photos
  • Street map from Street Directory, MSN Maps and Multimap.
  • Satellite image from Google Maps, WikiMapia and Terraserver.
• Geographical Names Register Status, from the Geographical Names Board of New South Wales.

Suburbs and localities within the Sutherland Shire | Southern Sydney | Sydney
Alfords Point | Audley | Bangor | Barden Ridge | Bonnet Bay | Bundeena | Burraneer | Caravan Head | Caringbah | Como | Como West | Cronulla | Dolans Bay | Engadine | Grays Point | Gundamaian | Gymea | Gymea Bay | Heathcote | Illawong | Jannali | Kangaroo Point | Kareela | Kirrawee | Kurnell | Lilli Pilli | Loftus | Lucas Heights | Maianbar | Menai | Miranda | North Engadine | Oyster Bay | Port Hacking | Sandy Point | Sutherland | Sylvania | Sylvania Heights | Sylvania Waters | Taren Point | Warumbul | Waterfall | Woolooware | Woronora | Woronora Heights | Yarrawarrah | Yowie Bay
List of Sydney suburbs

This article related to the geography of Sydney is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.