Perth

Living in Perth

Perth Western Australia

Perth LocationPerth is the capital of Western Australia and is Australia’s fourth largest city. It has a population of around 1.97 million people and is located on the south west coast of Australia. It is known as the world’s most isolated city because, well, it’s isolated!

Perth is so far away from the rest of Australia it’s sometimes difficult to remember that it is part of the same country. The nearest major city to Perth is Adelaide, yet according to Google, it would take about one day and eight hours to drive the 2,696 km between the two cities.

In the past, it used to be a little more expensive to live in Perth because of the extra costs involved in transporting goods to the area. Yet today, Perth is thriving and Western Australia is the country’s fastest growing economy thanks to its vast supply of mineral resources.

If they are short of anything over there, its workers to keep it all going. So these days, prices in Perth are more in line with the rest of Australia.

It seems the isolation isn’t such a bad thing either. The Economist Intelligence Unit’s 2014 Liveability Survey places Perth the 9th most liveable city in the world. That’s not bad!

The city itself is located on the banks of the Swan River, which is quite wide in places. But if you want sandy beaches then you’ll need to travel around 10 km west from the city where you will find the Indian Ocean.

As you can see from the photograph in my banner, it is a glorious coastline. Turn either left or right and you will be spoilt for choice for beautiful beaches.

Waterman Beech, North Beach, South Trigg Beach, Scarborough Beach, Brighton Beach, Floreat Beach, City Beach, Swanbourne Beach, Cottesloe Beach, Mosman Beach, Leighton Beach and Port Beach, to name just a few.

That’s all without leaving Perth; I think you get the idea.

What’s the weather like?

Perth WeatherHot, for the most part. Perth may well have the best summers in the whole of Australia. Well, that’s if you like 36° heat, 10 hours of sunshine a day and hardly any rain.

Like Brisbane, winters are mild and the rest of the time it’s hot, sunny and clear blue skies for the best part of it.

But as with most parts of Australia, sometimes the weather can be extreme. Perth can experience high winds and fierce storms, certain areas are at risk from flooding from the Swan River and the city is also close to Australia’s most active earthquake zone.

But mostly it is hot and sunny.

The Districts of Perth….

Map of Perth Western AustraliaPerth can be broken down into five main areas:

  • Inner Perth – including City, Inner North, Inner South, Inner South West, Inner East and Inner West
  • North Perth – including Northern Perth and Outer North
  • South Perth – including Outer South, Outer South West and Frementle
  • East Perth – including Outer East
  • West Perth – including Western Perth

Questions about Perth?

If you have any question about living in Perth, please please feel free to ask them in the comments below. Or if you know this city well, why not tell us what you think of it or maybe even help out by answering some of the questions people have about the area. I’m sure anybody thinking of moving here would be very grateful for any help you can give them.

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{ 629 comments… add one }
  • Kabi August 11, 2021, 3:34 am |

    Please also provide reviews for engineering institute of technology.

    • BobinOz August 16, 2021, 6:30 pm |

      That’s a bit too specific for me, hopefully someone who knows about the place will help you out.

  • Kabi August 11, 2021, 3:32 am |

    I would like to move to Perth. What should I look out as I plan my move. How much do houses go for? And as an accountant is it easier to get a job.

  • Heidi January 17, 2020, 8:14 am |

    Hi,thinking of joining our extended family in Perth, but would like to live in a diverse neighborhood, with good schools, between the CBD and the beaches. Any specific neighborhoods come to mind?
    Also, I am an EL teacher (Teacher of English to speakers of other languages) in the US. Do schools in Perth have such a position? I’m struggling to find any. Perhaps not looking at the right websites…..
    Thanks!

    • Anton Millidge January 17, 2020, 2:51 pm |

      I live in Leederville which is very close to the city (one train stop) and easy access to the beach. It is one of the localities to go out in with a lot of potential for improvement. The economy is not doing well over the past few years, leaving a number of empty shops and restaurants as people don’t spend money.
      Another problem is ice meth. It is everywhere and very prominent of recent in this location. Not much is being done about it sadly.
      Still a nice area to live for amenities and has a bit of a buzz not always associated with Perth.

    • BobinOz January 20, 2020, 7:55 pm |

      I can’t help with suburbs in Perth, so I’ll leave that to the locals like Anton who has already helped.

      I can help with the teacher thing though, because my wife is an English teacher and she tells me that you need to describe yourself as an EALD, which stands for English as a Additional Language or Dialect. So yes, we definitely have them, and quite a lot of them, because we have a lot of immigrants and also aboriginals who often use a variation of English with a different dialect.

      Here in Queensland, we have a government website called smartjobs and my wife thinks that probably there will be an equivalent for you in WA if you can track it down. It would probably be the best place to look for jobs in state schools.

  • Pete December 8, 2019, 2:31 pm |

    Thanks Bob. Just had to comment that here in Perth, as you say, we are close to one of Australia’s most active earthquake zones. BUT we hardly ever experience earthquakes anywhere in Australia. The last damaging quake here was in the 1970’s and that was about three hundred kilometres away. I’m a geologist so I can confidently say that our whole continent is pretty stable and the western bit has been very stable for a couple of billion years.

    Perth is pretty laid back. So much so that some people think it could do with a good shake-up.

    Thanks for the blog.

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