Highest-income suburbs in Australia

1. 1

   Longueville, NSW

   Population 2,116 · Median income $4,894/wk · SEIFA 1198

   Longueville is a tranquil harbourside suburb on the Lower North Shore of Sydney, occupying a peninsula between Tambourine Bay and Woodford Bay on the Lane Cove River, about eight kilometres north of the city. Before settlement it was home to the Cammeraygal people. Its earliest industry was a soap works of the 1830s, but the suburb proper began as a residential area in the 1870s and was formally proclaimed in the 1920s. The name is widely thought to honour the French nobleman the Duc de Longueville, and the main streets are said to be named for his three daughters, Christina, Lucretia and Arabella. Today gracious Victorian and Federation homes line its quiet streets, and a sailing skiff club sits at the peninsula's tip, marking it as one of Sydney's prestigious addresses.

2. 2

   Riverview (NSW), NSW

   Population 3,148 · Median income $4,731/wk · SEIFA 1196

3. 3

   Greenhills Beach, NSW

   Population 1,375 · Median income $4,704/wk · SEIFA 1205

4. 4

   Balgowlah Heights, NSW

   Population 3,546 · Median income $4,687/wk · SEIFA 1202

5. 5

   Castlecrag, NSW

   Population 2,965 · Median income $4,675/wk · SEIFA 1195

   Castlecrag is a leafy harbourside suburb on Sydney's lower North Shore, about eight kilometres north of the city centre in the City of Willoughby, almost encircled by the waters of Middle Harbour. It was planned in the 1920s by the architects Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin, the couple who had laid out Canberra, and named after a rocky outcrop above the harbour known locally as Edinburgh Castle. The Griffins conceived it as a model community living in harmony with the bush: houses of local stone with flat roofs and no front fences, roads that follow the land's natural contours, and a generous share of the land kept as leafy reserves. Many of its streets are named for parts of a castle, among them The Bastion, The Rampart and The Parapet, while the main thoroughfare is Edinburgh Road.

6. 6

   Dalkeith, WA

   Population 4,398 · Median income $4,672/wk · SEIFA 1192

   Dalkeith is a leafy, affluent riverside suburb of Perth, set on a peninsula of the Swan River within the City of Nedlands and consistently ranked among the city's most expensive places to buy a home. It takes its name from Dalkeith Cottage, built in 1833 by Captain Adam Armstrong, an early settler who had once managed the Earl of Dalkeith's estate in Scotland and carried the name across to his new house. On a farm later owned by James Gallop stands Gallop House, a two-storey home raised around 1872 and now the oldest surviving private residence in the suburb; long neglected, it was restored in the 1960s. Overlooking the water is the former Sunset Hospital, opened in 1904 and closed in 1995, several of whose heritage-listed buildings still stand among the gardens.

7. 7

   Clontarf (NSW), NSW

   Population 1,746 · Median income $4,609/wk · SEIFA 1189

8. 8

   Peppermint Grove, WA

   Population 1,597 · Median income $4,565/wk · SEIFA 1161

   Peppermint Grove is a small, affluent suburb on the north bank of the Swan River at Freshwater Bay, in Perth's western suburbs. It takes its name from the Swan River peppermint trees that still line many of its streets, and has long been associated with some of Western Australia's oldest and wealthiest families. The whole suburb forms its own local government area, the Shire of Peppermint Grove, which is the smallest in the country. Its prosperity shows in a number of grand historic houses, among them The Cliffe and the Federation Queen Anne residence St Just. The streets carry the names of the suburb's first residents, who bought lots when the land was subdivided in 1891. Riverfront reserves and jetties line the Freshwater Bay shore, and the shared Grove Library serves the surrounding districts.

9. 9

   Willoughby East, NSW

   Population 1,864 · Median income $4,536/wk · SEIFA 1186

10. 10

    Point Piper, NSW

    Population 1,334 · Median income $4,530/wk · SEIFA 1184

11. 11

    Tamarama, NSW

    Population 1,478 · Median income $4,522/wk · SEIFA 1209

12. 12

    Middle Cove, NSW

    Population 1,327 · Median income $4,446/wk · SEIFA 1185

13. 13

    North Balgowlah, NSW

    Population 3,816 · Median income $4,212/wk · SEIFA 1184

14. 14

    Seaforth (NSW), NSW

    Population 7,384 · Median income $4,184/wk · SEIFA 1181

    Seaforth sits on the northern shore of Sydney, a leafy residential pocket of the Northern Beaches that looks out across Middle Harbour toward Mosman, to which it is joined by the Spit Bridge. The suburb takes its name from Loch Seaforth and Seaforth Island in Scotland, and much of its land was held by Henry Halloran before he subdivided it in 1906. To the west the streets fall away to Sugarloaf Bay, with views over to Northbridge, Castlecrag and Castle Cove, while the bushland of Garigal National Park forms the northern boundary. A heritage-listed library, built in 1887, anchors the older part of the suburb, and a compact shopping district off Sydney Road serves the surrounding homes.

15. 15

    Pullenvale, QLD

    Population 3,276 · Median income $4,149/wk · SEIFA 1180

16. 16

    Roseville Chase, NSW

    Population 1,618 · Median income $4,026/wk · SEIFA 1194

17. 17

    Red Hill (ACT), ACT

    Population 3,146 · Median income $3,938/wk · SEIFA 1164

18. 18

    Dover Heights, NSW

    Population 4,044 · Median income $3,877/wk · SEIFA 1186

19. 19

    Northbridge (NSW), NSW

    Population 6,493 · Median income $3,874/wk · SEIFA 1181

    Northbridge is a quiet, leafy pocket of Sydney's Lower North Shore, occupying a peninsula that reaches into Middle Harbour and is wrapped by bush and water on three sides. With no through traffic, it keeps an unhurried, village feel within easy reach of the harbour. The suburb takes its name from a sandstone suspension bridge completed in the early eighteen-nineties; built in a romantic Federation Gothic style with medieval flourishes, it is now known as the Long Gully Bridge and remains a local landmark linking the area to Cammeray. Early settlement centred on Fig Tree Point, where Sydney jeweller William Twemlow built a sandstone home cut from stone quarried on the estate. Today Northbridge offers bushland reserves, water views and a relaxed residential character close to Chatswood.

20. 20

    Curl Curl, NSW

    Population 2,364 · Median income $3,870/wk · SEIFA 1166

21. 21

    Fig Tree Pocket, QLD

    Population 4,345 · Median income $3,791/wk · SEIFA 1172

    Fig Tree Pocket is a leafy riverside suburb in Brisbane's west, wrapped on three sides by a bend of the Brisbane River about thirteen kilometres from the city centre. The suburb takes its name from the Moreton Bay fig trees that once grew here; one giant specimen, much admired in the 1860s, gave the district its name, though that tree has long since vanished. A small reserve was set aside around it, and a state school opened in 1871. Fig Tree Pocket is best known as the home of Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, established in 1927 and reckoned the oldest and largest koala sanctuary in the world, where visitors meet koalas and other native wildlife. An equestrian club and riverside parkland add to its semi-rural charm.

22. 22

    Brookfield (Qld), QLD

    Population 3,640 · Median income $3,778/wk · SEIFA 1165

    Brookfield is a leafy, semi-rural suburb in Brisbane's west, a place of large acreage blocks and bushland about thirteen kilometres from the city centre, where Moggill Creek winds down to meet the Brisbane River. To the north rise the forested hills of the D'Aguilar National Park. The suburb is thought to have been named by Lucinda Brimblecombe for the way the creek runs through the district. Settlement followed the opening of the area to logging and farming in the eighteen-sixties, and a small village grew up around the crossing of Brookfield and Boscombe Roads. Brookfield State School opened in 1871 and marked its hundred-and-fiftieth year in 2021. A general store, hall, an Anglican church and the Brookfield Showground still anchor the village, and the annual Brookfield Show remains a country highlight.

23. 23

    Medindie, SA

    Population 1,175 · Median income $3,750/wk · SEIFA 1148

    Medindie is a small, established suburb just north of North Adelaide, sitting against the Adelaide Park Lands about two kilometres from the South Australian capital's centre. It is bounded by Robe Terrace, Northcote Terrace, Nottage Terrace and Main North Road, and is mainly residential, known for its gracious homes and a scattering of nineteenth-century mansions. Among them is Willyama on The Avenue, named with an Aboriginal word linked to the Broken Hill district by Charles Rasp, the boundary rider who pegged the claim that founded that mining city. Nearby stands The Briars, an ornate residence built for George Hawker in 1856. The suburb is also home to Wilderness School, a long-established girls' school whose origins trace back to a small school opened by the Brown sisters in 1884.

24. 24

    Nickol, WA

    Population 4,938 · Median income $3,736/wk · SEIFA 1059

25. 25

    City Beach, WA

    Population 6,805 · Median income $3,700/wk · SEIFA 1172

    City Beach is an affluent seaside suburb of Perth, set on the coast within the Town of Cambridge. Its origins lie in 1917, when the Perth Road Board bought the Lime Kilns Estate and set about laying out an up-to-date ocean town on fashionable garden-city lines, linking the growing city to the sea. The name caught on through the 1920s: an area developed by the City Council, it was thought a more dignified label than the earlier 'Ocean Beach'. The central neighbourhood was built just before the 1962 British Empire and Commonwealth Games as a village for the athletes competing at nearby Perry Lakes Stadium. Today the suburb is prized for its surf beach, the bushland reserve at Bold Park, and some of the most sought-after homes in the city.

Rankings are editorial, based on the public data shown on each suburb page. See our methodology.