Chatswood is a suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia and the seat of the City of Willoughby local government area. Chatswood is believed to be named after the pet name "Chat" of the second wife of Richard Harnett (a pioneer of the district) and the original "wooded" nature of the area.

Geography and setting

Chatswood is located about 10 km north of downtown Sydney and is the major commercial and retail hub of the North Shore district. Chatswood is a station on the North Shore Line and has bus links to the suburbs to the east and west. It has two major shopping malls (Chatswood Westfield and Chatswood Chase), several high rise office and apartment towers and is close to Lane Cove National Park. The commercial half of Chatswood lies mainly to the east of the train line, wheras the majority of skyscrapers and thus offices lie to the west.

The main thoroughfare is Victoria Avenue, which travels east-west across the path of the railway line. The railway station itself can only be crossed on foot, thus to drive from one end of Victoria Ave to the other it is necessary to detour via Help St. Most of Victoria Ave lies to the east of the railway station, with only a few hundred metres to the west of the railway line until it ends at the Pacific Highway.

The Interchange, a shopping centre and bus interchange built in the late 1980s provided pedestrian access between the two halves of Victoria Avenue. Demolition of The Interchange began in April 2005 to allow improvements to the railway line to accommodate the Epping to Chatswood railway line.

From the train station proceeding east, Victoria Avenue provides a mall with access to Chatswood Westfield and Lemon Grove shopping Malls, then continues towards Willoughby (away from the railway station) passing Chatswood Chase and continuing into residential parts of the suburb.

Shopping and commercial district

Chatswood has two semi-distinct shopping styles based loosely around the divide between the two shopping groups: locals and North-Shore shoppers.

The North-Shore shoppers come to Chatswood because it is a regional centre. They come generally to shop in either Chatswood Chase or Chatswood Westfield and a few shops in the surrounding mall. Chase (specifically) tends to cater more towards the upper end of this market, tending towards designer-label stores and the more expensive tastes. North-Shore shoppers don't generally stray out into the surrounding areas (at least not much beyond the Victoria St Mall) which means that those areas tend to maintain a more local flavour.

The local population has (since the beginning of the mid 1990s) a relatively high percentage of immigrants from Hong Kong and a few other southeast-asian groups. This leads the local areas to tend to have a good selection of Hong Kong/Singapore style eating places, such as the Mandarin Centre Food Court.

Victoria Ave and Archer St, Chatswood, looking west towards Chatswood Station, Dec 29, 2003.	Victoria Ave and Archer St, Chatswood, looking west towards Chatswood Station, Apr 6, 2005.	Shops in Chatswood are towered over by the large Westfield Shoppingtown, which is looked upon by the high residential towers located around Chatswood.	Civic Place in Victoria Avenue, Chatswood, 6 April, 2005. Planned to be replaced by modern buildings.
Eastern side of The Interchange in Victoria Avenue, April, 2005.	Northern side of The Interchange in Victoria Avenue, April, 2005.