Walcha
New South Wales · Armidale, New England and North West
Live · ABS ERP June 2025
The median age is 50, higher than the middle New South Wales area (40, Census 2021).
Walcha has 5 schools (4 government, 1 non-government; ACARA School Profile 2025) and 2 NQS-rated childcare services (ACECQA register). Population is 3,131 (ABS ERP June 2025).
Walcha at a glance
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Boundaries: ABS Suburbs & Localities 2021. School pins are ACARA's published locations. Map © OpenStreetMap contributors, © CARTO. Open the full NSW map →
How the Family-Fit score is built53/100
Family-Fit score
Method published in fullMixed for families - strongest on everyday amenities, weakest on childcare & early years.
- Schools in the area · 20% of the score
- 67/100
- Childcare & early years · 15% of the score
- 20/100
- Everyday amenities · 15% of the score
- 89/100
- Getting around · 15% of the score
- 50/100
- Housing affordability · 15% of the score
- 51/100
- Families already here · 10% of the score
- 44/100
- Socio-economic profile · 10% of the score
- 33/100
NSW median 70/100
5 schools in this SA2 · average government-school ICSEA 934
NSW median 90/100
2 NQS-rated services nearby
NSW median 78/100
6 parks · no GP mapped (not counted) · 2 supermarkets · 4 playgrounds
NSW median 50/100
1 train station in this SA2 (no train-time data for NSW yet)
NSW median 38/100
Paying over 30% of income on housing: 16.7% of mortgage-holding households, 25.5% of renting households
NSW median 67/100
16.6% of residents are children aged 0–14 · 33.1% of families are couples with children
NSW median 56/100
SEIFA IRSAD decile 4 of 10 nationally
The grey marker on each bar is the median across the 612 New South Wales areas we publish a score for (state median overall: 64/100). It is context, not a pass mark.
How this score is calculated
Each published figure for the Walcha SA2 is mapped onto 0–100 by fixed thresholds, then weighted. Inputs with no data here are dropped and the rest rescaled - never scored as zero. Every threshold and weight →
School results, crime and flood or bushfire overlays are not graded into this score. Limits of the score →
What families notice
What families notice
- This address is zoned to Walcha Central School (government, no fees).
- Recorded incidents are down 36% on the year before.
- 6 parks mapped inside this SA2 (OpenStreetMap).
- We don't yet have property or rent figures for this area - check a real-estate portal directly for current prices.
Living in Walcha: family snapshot
Living in Walcha
A smaller suburb. 2 NQS-rated childcare services nearby. Mostly detached family homes.
Walcha compared with New South Wales10 measures
| Measure | Walcha | NSW average | Against NSW |
|---|---|---|---|
| Children aged 0 to 4 | 5.5% | 5.8% | About the same |
| Children aged 5 to 14 | 11.1% | 12.4% | Lower |
| Couple families with children | 33.1% | 44.5% | Lower |
| One-parent families | 8.6% | 15.9% | Lower |
| Homes owned outright | 48.6% | 31.9% | Higher |
| Homes owned with a mortgage | 22.5% | 33.7% | Lower |
| Homes rented | 20.0% | 32.5% | Lower |
| Separate houses | 95.4% | 67.4% | Higher |
| Flats and apartments | 3.2% | 20.3% | Lower |
| Born overseas | 5.4% | 29.3% | Lower |
Source: ABS Census 2021. The NSW figure is the population-weighted average of the 641 NSW areas with a published value. "Higher" and "Lower" describe the number only.
About this area and its boundary
Walcha is a locality in the Armidale area of New South Wales. This profile draws on ABS population and Census figures, the ACARA school register and ACECQA childcare ratings for the Walcha SA2.
3,131 residents - 16.6% are children under 15, median age 50.
This profile uses the ABS Walcha statistical area (SA2) - the level Australian government data is published at. SA2 boundaries don’t always match suburb boundaries. It covers the gazetted suburbs of Walcha, Woolbrook, Yarrowitch, Niangala, Nowendoc and Walcha Road, drawn separately on the map above.
Property market
No free house sale price or 3-bedroom house rent is published for this area. 20.0% of homes are rented, against 32.5% across New South Wales.
Homes and households
Source: ABS Census 2021. Where the shares do not add to 100%, the rest is "other" or "not stated".
Housing cost pressuremortgage and rent against income
Housing cost pressure
In Walcha, 25.5% of renting households spend more than 30% of their income on rent, and 16.7% of households with a mortgage spend more than 30% on repayments - the ABS's stretched-household threshold (Census 2021).
ABS published figures, not our calculation.
- Mortgage over 30% of income
- 16.7%
- Rent over 30% of income
- 25.5%
NSW avg 17.3%
Share of households WITH a mortgage whose repayments take more than 30% of income. That's 45 of 228 households with a stated repayment.
NSW avg 35.5%
Share of RENTING households whose rent takes more than 30% of income. That's 61 of 190 households with a stated rent.
The two figures cover different households (mortgage-holding vs renting), so never add them. How the ABS counts these → Grey marker: NSW average (622 for mortgage and 622 for rent). Census 2021 - housing costs have moved since. Not financial advice.
What's being built herenew homes approved, year by year
What's being built here
3 new homes were approved in Walcha in the year to June 2025. Councils approved 41 new dwellings here across the 6 years to June 2025 - an approval is permission to build, not a home that exists yet.
Approved in the year to June 2025
Middle NSW area: 37
Separate houses
Private sector, over these 6 years
Townhouses & apartments
Private sector, over these 6 years
Counts are for the whole Walcha statistical area. What these counts include → Dashed line: the median of 599New South Wales areas.
Schools and childcare
5 schools are located in the area, and the centre of the area is zoned to Walcha Central School. 2 childcare services are on the national register, 2 rated Meeting the National Quality Standard or above.
Walcha Central School
The government school your child can attend for free by living in Walcha.
This is the zoned government school for the centre of Walcha (NSW catchment data) - addresses elsewhere in the suburb may be zoned to a different school.
See the catchment on the mapThe government Year 7 zone for the centre of Walcha (NSW catchment data) - addresses elsewhere in the suburb may be zoned to a different school.
Fee-paying schools can’t be enrolled in by zone - they’re shown for context, not as the area’s school quality.
We show school intake context and catchments, not exam results. We don’t publish a school ranking.
To look beyond Walcha, every New South Wales school is on the Australian schools and catchment zones map.
Find the school zone for an address in Walcha
Type a street address in Victoria, NSW or Queensland. We show the government primary and secondary school zones it is in, from the official zone maps.
Your address goes from your browser straight to OpenStreetMap's address search to find it on the map. We never see it or store it. Address search © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Schools in Walcha
- Students
- 230
- ICSEA
- 906
- Students
- 94
- ICSEA
- 1027
- Students
- 11
- ICSEA
- 995
- Students
- 11
- ICSEA
- 900
- Students
- 3
- ICSEA
- not published
ICSEA reflects student intake context, not teaching quality (1000 = national average). Source: ACARA School Profile 2025. All NSW schools →
Childcare: 2 services
National Quality Standard ratings from the ACECQA register, refreshed Oct 2026. Services are matched by suburb name.
Childcare services, ratings and fees2 services
- Meeting NQSWalcha PreschoolCentre-Based Care · 59 places · WalchaRated Mar 2021 · over 3 years old, check for a more recent assessment
- Meeting NQSLittle Kindy WalchaCentre-Based Care · 42 places · WalchaRated Mar 2025
- Centre-based day care
- $12.86/hr
- Outside school hours care
- $8.44/hr
Mean hourly fee across CCS-approved services, December quarter 2025 - Dept of Education, © Commonwealth of Australia, CC BY 4.0. Published at SA3 level (a wider area than this suburb's SA2), so it's an average across Armidale and surrounds, not this specific service list.
Verify locations before visiting. A rating over 3 years old is flagged. What the NQS ratings mean → Childcare places per child, by suburb →
Who lives here
Fewer people born overseas than New South Wales overall: 5.4% of residents, against 29.3% statewide.
Ages of people here
Share of residents in each age band, in years. Source: ABS Census 2021.
How the area is changingCensus 2011 to 2021
Each line is drawn on its own scale, so compare the numbers, not the heights. Source: ABS Census 2011, 2016 and 2021; Travel Zone Projections 2024 (TZP24), Transport for NSW forecast, published for the council area, not the suburb.
Census trends against the middle NSW areafull charts
Which way this area is moving
The 2011, 2016 and 2021 Censuses for Walcha, counted on today's boundaries.
Since 2011, Walcha has grown older, with a smaller share of children.
- People counted
- −47 people since 2011
- Median age
- +5 years since 2011
- Children aged 0–14
- −2.1 pts since 2011
- Born overseas
- +0.4 pts since 2011
- Speak another language at home
- +0.4 pts since 2011
Usual residents counted on Census night.
Half the residents are older than this, half younger.
Share of all residents. The clearest signal of families arriving or moving on.
Share of all residents born outside Australia.
Share of residents who stated a language, speaking one other than English at home.
The dashed line is the median across the New South Wales areas we profile. How the three Censuses line up →
How many people will live around hereofficial forecast
How many people will live around here
The rest of this page looks backwards. This is the one number that looks forward - and it is the state government's own, not ours. Travel Zone Projections 2024 (Transport for NSW) projects the Walcha council area, which contains Walcha along with its neighbouring suburbs, to hold steady to 3,150 people by 2041: about the same number of people than the 3,150 counted in 2021.
This is the council area, not Walcha. Walcha is a whole local government area covering many suburbs, and neither state publishes a projection for a single suburb. Growth is never spread evenly across a council - a greenfield estate and an established street inside the same council will move very differently - so read this as the direction of the wider area a suburb sits in, not as a forecast for its own streets. Only the years the publisher itself lists are plotted: nothing is filled in between them, and nothing is carried past 2041. A projection is an assumption about the future, not a measurement of it, and it will be revised - this one was released 2024. These figures sit on the projection's own series, so they are not directly comparable with the ABS resident-population and Census counts elsewhere on this page, which use different geographies and different years.
Where this year's population change came from-0.30% in a year
Where did the loss come from?
-10Reading the streams: overseas arrivals were the dominant force - more came from abroad than the suburb grew on its own.
Ages against the state average, band by band
Ages of people here
11.1% of people here are school-age children (5–14) - fewer than the New South Wales average of 12.4%, and 5.5% are under 5. The median age is 50.
- 0–4 years · before school
- 5.5%
- 5–14 years · school age
- 11.1%
- 15–19 years · teens
- 4.8%
- 20–34 years
- 13.1%
- 35–54 years
- 20.5%
- 55–64 years
- 15.6%
- 65 years and over
- 29.4%
NSW avg 5.8%
NSW avg 12.4%
NSW avg 5.7%
NSW avg 20.3%
NSW avg 26.3%
NSW avg 11.9%
NSW avg 17.6%
Share of all residents of Walcha (ABS Statistical Area 2) at the 2021 Census; the grey marker is the New South Wales average. How the bands and averages work →
Households and families
Households and families
42% of families here have children living at home - fewer than the New South Wales average of 60%. The largest overseas-born communities are United Kingdom (1.8%), New Zealand (1%) and Netherlands (0.4%). 20% of homes are rented.
Family make-up
Share of all families in the area. A small "other family" group the ABS also counts is not shown.
- Couple with children
- 33.1%
- One-parent family
- 8.6%
- Couple, no children
- 57.3%
NSW avg 44.5%
NSW avg 15.9%
NSW avg 37.9%
What people live in
Share of occupied private dwellings. Other and unstated structures are not shown.
- Separate house
- 95.4%
- Semi-detached / townhouse
- 0.2%
- Flat or apartment
- 3.2%
NSW avg 67.4%
NSW avg 11.6%
NSW avg 20.3%
Owned or rented
Share of occupied private dwellings. Other and unstated tenures are not shown.
- Owned outright
- 48.6%
- Owned with a mortgage
- 22.5%
- Rented
- 20%
NSW avg 31.9%
NSW avg 33.7%
NSW avg 32.5%
Figures describe Walcha (ABS Statistical Area 2) at the 2021 Census; the grey marker is the New South Wales average. How these are counted →
Birthplaces, languages and communities
Who lives in Walcha
Top 5 overseas birthplaces shown · 96.4% born in Australia or a country not in the top five.
- United Kingdom · established by 2016
- 1.8%
- New Zealand · established by 2016
- 1%
- Netherlands · growing since 2016
- 0.4%
- Germany · growing since 2016
- 0.3%
- Croatia · growing since 2016
- 0.1%
NSW avg 3.2%
NSW avg 1.1%
NSW avg 0%
NSW avg 0.1%
NSW avg 0%
- Nearby
- Armidale Surrounds - South, Armidale and Gloucester also have an established United Kingdom community.
- Settlement pattern
- Of overseas-born residents who stated when they arrived, 4.3% arrived in the last 5 years (2016–2021) (NSW avg 16.2%) and 82.9% arrived before 2001 (NSW avg 52%).
- English at home
- Of residents who speak a language other than English at home and stated their English proficiency, 0% report speaking English “not well” or “not at all” (NSW avg 13.5%) - a self-reported ABS figure across all languages combined, not a judgement of any one community.
Figures describe Walcha (ABS Statistical Area 2) at the 2021 Census. The ABS publishes only the five largest communities per area, so a missing name did not rank in the top five. How these are counted →
Socio-economic index (SEIFA)decile 4 of 10
- Decile (1 lowest, 10 highest)
- Decile 4 of 10
- Where this sits in NSW
- bottom 40% of New South Wales areas
A relative comparison of the whole area against all of Australia - not a safety, liveability, or school-quality measure. What IRSAD measures → Source: ABS SEIFA 2021, IRSAD index (SA2).
Getting around and lifestyle
2 supermarkets and 6 parks are mapped in the area, and the nearest emergency department is Walcha Multi-Purpose Service, 24.9 km away in a straight line.
Mapped inside the Walcha boundary. A zero can mean "not mapped" rather than "not there". Source: © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Train to the city and nearest emergency department
Train to the city
Not publishedNew South Wales publishes its timetable data behind a free developer account we have not yet set up, so we show no travel time here. This is a gap on our side, not a statement about the transport in this area.
Nearest emergency department
MappedWalcha Multi-Purpose Service · 24.9 km
Straight-line distance from the middle of this area - not a drive time. In an emergency call 000; do not plan around this figure.
Community and recreation
Out with a baby
Public-toilet facilities recorded on the National Public Toilet Map - not every place in the area that will let you change a baby.
About this data
Counts of features tagged in OpenStreetMap inside the Walcha boundary. “Middle NSW area”: the median of 634 New South Wales areas. How these counts and times are made →
Source: © OpenStreetMap contributors · baby-facility counts from the National Public Toilet Map (Continence Foundation of Australia, funded by the Australian Government Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, CC BY 3.0 AU)
Crime & safety in Walcha
Police recorded 121 incidents in Walcha in Jan-Dec 2025, down 36% on the year before. This is a raw count, not a rate or a rating.
Largest offence categories
Is Walcha safe? Here's what police recorded
Police recorded 121 criminal incidents in Walcha in Jan-Dec 2025 (NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BOCSAR), released 2026 Q3). Counts are often higher where many people visit (shopping centres, stations, nightlife), not only where many people live. SuburbRadar does not rate suburbs as safe or unsafe.
How much crime is recorded in Walcha?
121 incidents in Jan-Dec 2025, against 190 the year before. The largest offence categories were Assault (23), Against justice procedures (22), Theft (21). These are raw counts as published, not adjusted for population. Source: NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BOCSAR), released 2026 Q3. Counts are often higher where many people visit (shopping centres, stations, nightlife), not only where many people live. SuburbRadar does not rate suburbs as safe or unsafe.
Police-recorded incident counts (Calendar years; latest = Jan-Dec 2025). Raw counts, not a rate, and not a judgement about the suburb. Counts are often higher where many people visit (shopping centres, stations, nightlife), not only where many people live. SuburbRadar does not rate suburbs as safe or unsafe. Source: NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BOCSAR), released 2026 Q3. More on crime & safety →
© State of New South Wales (Department of Communities and Justice), licensed under CC BY 4.0 (copyright notice). Suburb totals are added up from published figures.
Risks
3 of the 4 planning and hazard records we hold show something in this area: bushfire, heritage controls and traffic noise. 3 more are not published for NSW - treat them as not checked.
Bushfire
Designated Bush Fire Prone LandPresent in this area
Heritage controls
In an official overlayPresent in this area
Traffic noise
Main roads onlyOxley Highway · Thunderbolts Way · B56;21 · +6 more
Each line is the extent of an official record across the whole Walcha area - not a risk rating, and a specific address may or may not be affected. Not financial or insurance advice.
All 9 checks and what each one means
Flooding
Not publishedNew South Wales publishes flood planning maps council by council, with no free statewide layer we can republish - check the local council's flood planning map for this area.
Bushfire
Designated Bush Fire Prone LandPresent in this area
Part of this area is mapped as Bush Fire Prone Land by the NSW Rural Fire Service. This designation is drawn broadly around vegetation across most of NSW, so read it as "check the property", not as a measure of how exposed the area is.
Heritage controls
In an official overlayPresent in this area
Part of this area sits inside the heritage layer in the local environmental plan, so changes to buildings there - extensions, demolition, sometimes even paint colours - need planning approval. It applies property by property: most homes in an area with an overlay are not in it, and being in one is a protection as much as a restriction. Almost every NSW area contains some heritage-listed land, so read this as "check the address", not as something that sets this area apart.
Traffic noise
Main roads onlyOxley Highway · Thunderbolts Way · B56;21 · +6 more
No freeway or highway is mapped inside this area. 9 named main roads (arterial or connector) run through it. Roads are counted by name, not by mapped segment.
Aircraft noise
Not mappedNew South Wales maps aircraft-noise contours only where a council or precinct plan writes them in - four councils and the Western Sydney Airport precinct do. Sydney Airport's contours are published federally in its master plan and are not in the state layer, so read this as "nothing mapped here", not as a quiet area.
Land contamination checks
Not mappedNew South Wales records contaminated land in the EPA's searchable register of notified sites rather than in a planning-scheme map layer, so we have no overlay to show for this area. Search the NSW EPA contaminated land record for a specific address - nothing mapped here means we have not checked it, not that the land is clear.
Acid sulfate soils
None mappedNew South Wales classifies acid sulfate soils in the planning instruments of its coastal and estuarine councils only, and none is mapped in this area. These soils form in low-lying coastal sediments, so away from the coast and the estuaries there is nothing to map - read this as outside the mapped zone rather than as a soil test.
Recorded crime
Official counts published121 incidents
Police-recorded criminal incidents in Calendar years; latest = Jan-Dec 2025, down 36% on the prior year. A count, not a rate - busier areas with more shops, stations and visitors record more incidents than quiet ones of the same size. Full breakdown ↑
Social housing
Census figure1.3% rented from a state or territory housing authority · 1.2% from a community housing provider
Share of occupied private dwellings here with a stated tenure (Census 2021). The middle NSW area is 1.6% public and 0.7% community, across 624 areas. Listed because families ask; it is a fact about who owns the homes, not a judgement about the people in them.
About this data
Every line is an official published record for the Walcha area - we don't rate, score or rank any of them. Where a line is missing, treat it as not checked rather than clear. What each line covers and does not →
Source: NSW Rural Fire Service Bush Fire Prone Land, © State Government of NSW and NSW Rural Fire Service · NSW Planning EPI Heritage, Airport Noise + Acid Sulfate Soils, © State of New South Wales, Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure - CC BY 4.0 · NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BOCSAR), released 2026 Q3 · ABS Census 2021 (G37 tenure and landlord type) · © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL) - road classification
Nearby suburbs
- Armidale Surrounds (South area) 54 km
- Tamworth (North area) 61 km
- Tamworth (East area) 62 km
- Armidale 65 km
- Tamworth Surrounds 66 km
- Tamworth (West area) 66 km
The six closest profiled areas in New South Wales, by distance between area centres.
The suburbs in this area
Everything else on this page is published for Walcha as a whole - one ABS statistical area covering 6 separate gazetted suburbs. These are the figures published for each of those suburbs on its own.
| Suburb | Residents Census 2021 | Schools |
|---|---|---|
| Walcha | 2,475 | 2 |
| Woolbrook | 183 | 1 |
| Yarrowitch | 171 | 1 |
| Niangala | 149 | 1 |
| Nowendoc | 88 | 0 |
| Walcha Road | 72 | 0 |
Each row is that suburb's own published figure - nothing here is the wider area's number divided up. Resident counts are the Census 2021 usual-resident count for the gazetted suburb, so they will not add up to the population at the top of this page, which is the ABS's later June 2025 estimate for the whole statistical area: a different measure on a different date. Schools are ACARA-registered schools whose published address falls inside the suburb boundary, which is not the same as the school your address is zoned to. No free source publishes suburb-level house medians in New South Wales, so no price column is shown - that is our coverage gap, not a statement about the market here. Every other figure on this page - crime & safety, overlays, commute, amenities, projections, the Family-Fit score - is published for the whole statistical area and cannot be separated by suburb.
Other areas in Armidalesorted by growth in one year
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