King Street is today the central thoroughfare of the suburb

Suburb

The word suburb mostly refers to a residential area, either existing as part of a city or as a separate residential community within commuting distance of a city . Some suburbs have a degree of administrative autonomy, and most have lower population density than inner city neighborhoods...

 of Newtown

Newtown, New South Wales

Newtown, a suburb of Sydney's inner west is located approximately four kilometres south-west of the Sydney central business district, straddling the local government areas of the City of Sydney and Marrickville Council in the state of New South Wales, Australia....

 in Sydney

Sydney

Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

, New South Wales

New South Wales

New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. It's in this street that the residents of the area are most visible, confirming Newtown's reputation as a cosmopolitan community with a higher than average concentration of students, homosexuals and those with an artistic bent who tend to dress with colourful flair. The street can be divided geographically into two sections, North and South. King Street is particularly notable for the many picturesque Victorian and Edwardian era shops and other buildings that line the street.

North King Street

North King Street, running east-north-east to west-south-west between the University of Sydney

University of Sydney

The University of Sydney is a public university located in Sydney, New South Wales. The main campus spreads across the suburbs of Camperdown and Darlington on the southwestern outskirts of the Sydney CBD. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and Oceania...

 (where it joins with City Road

City Road, Sydney

City Road is a large thoroughfare in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. City Road runs south from a junction with Broadway and Parramatta Road, through the University of Sydney and becomes King Street as it enters the suburb of Newtown....

), past Newtown railway station

Newtown railway station, Sydney

-Transport links:Sydney Buses runs nine routes via Newtown station:*Route 352 - weekdays daytime services - between Bondi Junction Interchange and Marrickville Metro Shopping Centre...

 at the junction with Enmore Road, is the stretch that most people associate with King Street. This area is a very busy thoroughfare, with traffic jams the rule rather than the exception, heavy foot traffic, and a profusion of restaurants, cafés and fashion retailers. King Street was served by a busy tramway

Trams in Sydney

The Sydney tramway network once served Sydney, the capital city of New South Wales, Australia. In its heyday, it was the largest in Australia, the second largest in the Commonwealth , and one of the largest in the world. It was extremely intensively worked, with about 1,600 cars in service at any...

 until the system's closure in 1957.

Like Parramatta Road

Parramatta Road

.Parramatta Road is the major historical east-west artery of metropolitan Sydney, Australia, connecting the Sydney with Parramatta. It is the eastern-most part of the Great Western Highway. Much of its traffic has been diverted to modern expressways such as the M4 and the City West Link...

, King Street is believed to follow the line of ancient Aboriginal

Indigenous Australians

Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. The Aboriginal Indigenous Australians migrated from the Indian continent around 75,000 to 100,000 years ago....

 track that led from the Sydney Cove

Sydney Cove

Sydney Cove is a small bay on the southern shore of Port Jackson , on the coast of the state of New South Wales, Australia....

 area south-west across to Botany Bay

Botany Bay

Botany Bay is a bay in Sydney, New South Wales, a few kilometres south of the Sydney central business district. The Cooks River and the Georges River are the two major tributaries that flow into the bay...

. Prior to white settlement, the local Aboriginal population kept the Sydney area well cleared with regular low-level fires. Colonial officer Watkin Tench

Watkin Tench

Lieutenant-General Watkin Tench was a British Marine officer who is best known for publishing two books describing his experiences in the First Fleet, which established the first settlement in Australia in 1788...

 recorded that during the early years of the colony, the area beyond the settlement was, in effect, open parkland, and that it was possible to walk easily across country from Sydney Cove to Botany Bay.

South King Street

South King Street was by contrast the down-market section, with less traffic and fewer retailers, running southwards from the station to Sydney Park. In recent years, the far northern section seems to have lost most of its lustre, while the central section has become almost glamorous, and South King Street has attracted a cluster of design shops and homeware shops, which along with assorted small quirky businesses and cafés, has made it one of the most interesting strips in Sydney. It is sometimes referred to as the "Paris end" of King Street.

King Street has also become quite residential above the shops: many development proposals include large numbers of apartments above the retail sections. The street, as a whole, is the best-preserved Victorian era

Victorian era

The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...

 high street

High Street

High Street, or the High Street, is a metonym for the generic name of the primary business street of towns or cities, especially in the United Kingdom. It is usually a focal point for shops and retailers in city centres, and is most often used in reference to retailing...

 in Sydney, and development controls ensure that this will not change, even though it came about by luck. At the crucial time when Victorian buildings where being demolished elsewhere, Newtown was too unfashionable to make development profitable.

In popular culture

• The Whitlams
  The Whitlams
  The discography of The Whitlams consists of six studio albums, two live albums, one compilation album, and eighteen singles.-Studio albums:-Live albums:-Compilation albums:-Singles:-Videos:-Music videos:-Awards:...
  
   band became popular for its performances in 'The Sando
  Sandringham Hotel, Newtown
  The Sandringham Hotel is a pub in the suburb of Newtown in the inner-west of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia.The pub has a long history and is the spiritual homeland to several of Sydney's bands, including Frenzal Rhomb and The Whitlams. It is known locally as The Sando.Before...
  
  ', South King St. Newtown