Birrong, New South Wales

Birrong, a suburb of local government area City of Bankstown, is located 22 kilometres south-west of the Sydney central business district, in the state of New South Wales, Australia, and is a part of the South-western Sydney region. Birrong shares its postcode of 2143 with neighbouring suburbs Regents Park and Potts Hill.

Landmarks
Birrong features a large number of community facilities such as six soccer/rugby league fields, tennis courts, a large natural park reserve, a bowls club, and swimming pool. Birrong also has two high schools, Birrong Boys High School and Birrong Girls High School, and a primary school. A small group of shops is located on Auburn Road, featuring a barber, bakery, newsagent, IGA (including bottle shop and butcher), hair salon and florist.

History
The Aboriginal word Birrong meaning star, was adopted as the suburb's name around 1927.

One of the first settlers of Birrong was Joseph Hyde Potts who was granted land in the area in 1835 and has Potts Hill named after him. Development in the area of Birrong increased with the opening of the railway in 1928. Birrong Park, an area that was subject to flooding was drained as relief work during the Great Depression (1929-1934). The post office opened in 1955.

Demographics
According to the 2011 Census of Population, there were 2,953 residents in Birrong. In Birrong, 50.3% of people were born in Australia. The most common other countries of birth were Vietnam 15.7%, China (excludes SARs and Taiwan) 3.3%, Lebanon 3.2%, New Zealand 2.3% and Fiji 1.1%. 35.3% of people only spoke English at home. Other languages spoken at home included Vietnamese 19.5%, Arabic 13.3%, Cantonese 5.8%, Mandarin 3.1% and Macedonian 1.6%. The most common responses for religion in Birrong were Catholic 24.7%, Buddhism 18.0%, Islam 14.0%, No Religion 9.5% and Anglican 8.4%.

Education
Birrong Girls High School is a public girls high school that was established as a girls' comprehensive high school in 1957. There are 820 students (2006 estimate) from a wide variety of cultural backgrounds enrolled in the school. 84% of students are from non-English speaking background (NESB) which represents 46 language groups.

Transport
Birrong is served by a railway station on the Bankstown line of the Sydney Trains network. Birrong is also serviced by a bus network run by Veolia Transport.