How big is New South Wales?

The area of New South Wales is 801,150 square kilometres. This makes the size of New South Wales slightly bigger than Turkey, and slightly smaller than Mozambique.

New South Wales may be home to Sydney, Australia’s largest city, but it is only the fourth largest state in Australia. Western Australia, Queensland and South Australia are all bigger, as is the Northern Territory.

That’s not to say the area of New South Wales is small, however. To drive from Byron Bay on the north coast to Wentworth in the south-west, just before crossing the state border into Mildura, would take more than 18 hours.

How big is NSW? Area of New South Wales

So how big is New South Wales? According to the Australian Government’s Geoscience Australia department, the area of New South Wales is 801,150 square kilometres. That’s 10.4% of the total area of Australia.

It also makes New South Wales 59% the size of the Northern Territory, 81% the size of South Australia and just under a third the size of Western Australia.

However, the size of New South Wales is nearly 12 times bigger than Tasmania.

To offer an international comparison, the United Kingdom could fit into New South Wales about three-and-a-third times.

4wd on dirt road near Broken Hill, NSW — New South Wales is big enough to have plenty of outback. Here, a 4WD ploughs down a dirt road near Broken Hill. Photo by David Whitley/ Australia Travel Questions

How big is New South Wales comparatively?

If New South Wales was an independent country, it would be the 37^th largest country in the world. Slightly larger than New South Wales are Mozambique, Namibia and Pakistan. Slightly smaller than New South Wales are Turkey, Chile and Zambia.

If New South Wales was a state of the US, it would be the second largest. The area of New South Wales is 15% bigger than Texas, and just under half the size of Alaska.

Most of the New South Wales population lives on the coast, but there are some sizable inland cities such as Albury, Wagga Wagga, Armidale and Goulburn.