GOSFORD

city, east central New South Wales, Australia, at the north end of the Brisbane Water branch of Broken Bay. Surveyed and founded in 1839 and named after the 2nd earl of Gosford, it was merged in 1886 with the privately owned village of East Gosford to form a municipality. Gosford became a shire in 1947 and a city in 1980. Principal city of the Broken Bay district and a suburb of Sydney (32 mi southwest), to which it is linked by electric trains and the Pacific Highway, Gosford is also a resort and service centre of an area producing mixed farm crops and citrus and passion fruits and manufacturing building materials. West of Gosford is Old Sydney Town Heritage Park, a reconstruction of Sydney as it was in 1810. The town of Woy Woy is nearby. Pop. (1981) 94,369.