Every Australian city has a part of town where the pubs seem to be on every corner. We wanted to know which suburbs really have the most, so we went and counted.

We couldn’t count beer gardens directly, because no public data records them. But a lot of Australian pubs come with a beer garden, courtyard or rooftop, so the more pubs a suburb has, the better your chances of finding a seat in the sun.

How we worked it out

  • We took every pub mapped on OpenStreetMap in Australia, almost 5,000 of them, using data from mid-2026.
  • We matched each pub to its suburb, then divided the number of pubs by the suburb’s area to get pubs per square kilometre.
  • To keep it fair, a suburb needed at least five pubs to make the list (three in the ACT and the Northern Territory, where pubs are more spread out).

OpenStreetMap is built by volunteers, so a few pubs will be missing or mapped as bars. Treat the numbers as a good guide rather than an official count.

The results

New South Wales: Haymarket. 11 pubs squeezed into about half a square kilometre, roughly 21 per square kilometre. That’s the highest in the country, just ahead of Darlinghurst and Chippendale at around 20.

Victoria: Fitzroy. 26 pubs in about 1.4 square kilometres, or around 19 per square kilometre. That makes it the top suburb outside New South Wales.

Western Australia: Northbridge. Six pubs in a small patch just north of the Perth CBD. Fremantle has the most pubs in the state (19), but Northbridge packs them in tighter.

Tasmania: Battery Point. Seven pubs in its historic streets, just edging out central Hobart at about 10 per square kilometre each.

Queensland: Fortitude Valley. 12 pubs in about 1.4 square kilometres, or around 9 per square kilometre, ahead of Brisbane City and West End.

South Australia: Adelaide. The city centre wins outright, with 49 pubs. North Adelaide is next, with 12.

Australian Capital Territory: Braddon. Canberra spreads its pubs out, but Braddon has the tightest cluster, with three in about 1.5 square kilometres.

Northern Territory: Darwin City. Seven pubs in the city centre. Tennant Creek has the next most, with five.

Making the most of it

A suburb full of pubs is the perfect place for a sun-chasing afternoon. If one beer garden has gone into shade, there’s usually another a short walk away. Knowing which way a beer garden faces helps too.

Summing up

Fitzroy, Haymarket and Northbridge lead the way for pubs per square kilometre, with Battery Point, Fortitude Valley, Adelaide, Braddon and Darwin City topping their own states. Whichever one is closest, Sunny shows you which of its pubs and beer gardens are in the sun right now. It’s free, and no venue can pay to be on it.

Pub data © OpenStreetMap contributors, available under the Open Database Licence. Header photo of the Napier Hotel in Fitzroy by John Torcasio on Unsplash.