Blacktown, city in southeastern Australia, in the state of New South Wales, part of greater Sydney. Blacktown is about 40 km (about 25 mi) west of central Sydney on the Great Western Highway leading to Penrith and the Blue Mountains. It has an area of 247 sq km (95 sq mi), and its landscape ranges from flat to rolling. Bounded by the cities of Fairfield, Hawkesbury, Penrith, Holroyd, and Parramatta and the shire of Baulkham Hills, Blacktown includes the districts of Arndell Park, Mount Druitt, Rooty Hill, Quakers Hill, and Kings Park. Blacktown is a manufacturing suburb with electronics and energy industries. Blacktown has many low-income households and a high level of youth unemployment. It also has a high percentage of immigrants, many of whom do not speak English as a first language. Its major tourist attractions include the Wonderland and Wildlife Park, the Featherdale Wildlife Park, and the Eastern Creek Raceway.
Blacktown was created in the 1820s when Governor Lachlan Macquarie set it aside as an experimental area for Aboriginal housing and farming. Large numbers of the Aborigines died of diseases brought by Europeans, and many others did not adapt to European-style settled agriculture, dooming the experiment. Before the 1920s Blacktown was mainly an area where produce was grown for local markets, but residential expansion from Sydney quickly took over the area. Blacktown was proclaimed a city in 1979. Population (1991) 284,590.Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2001
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