Australian city of Darwin saw the largest citizenship ceremony conducted in the city when 270 people take the pledge to become Australians.
They gathered at the Darwin Entertainment Centre to be conferred as citizens by Lord Mayor Katrina Fong Lim today (15 April).
The new citizens are from 39 countries including India, South Africa, China, Germany, Scotland, Ireland, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Canada and Iran.
This is the largest group of people receiving citizenship in Darwin in recent years. The last large-scale Darwin ceremony was in October 2012 when 135 people were conferred as citizens.
So far this year the Darwin City Council has conferred citizenship on 424 people.
Born and raised in Darwin, the 52-year old lord mayor is the daughter of Alec Fong Lim who was the lord mayor in the 1980s. The late Alec Fong Lim was the first Chinese Australian Lord Mayor.
A Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) spokesman said the source countries of people in the ceremony represented Darwin’s well-known multicultural society.
“Darwin has for many years been a vibrant community with a large number of cultures represented in its population and this ceremony certainly reflects that community,†the spokesman said.
With a population of 129,100, Darwin is home to the highest proportional population of Aborigines (10%) of any Australian capital city. However, a majority of population is Australian (37%), followed by English (26%) and Irish (8%).
Darwin is known for its mining and tourism industries, which contribute $2.5 billion annually.
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