NSW’s Favourite Urban Place 2026
Nominate your Town Square
Town Squares (clockwise from top left): Darling Square, Haymarket; The Concourse, Chatswood; Sydney Square, Town Hall; Parramatta Square, Parramatta; Tumbalong Park, Haymarket; The Forum, St Leonards.
For this year’s NSW’s Favourite Urban Place, we’re inviting you to nominate your favourite town square anywhere in NSW.
If there is a square that you love spending time in, we’d love to hear about it.
Submit your nomination using the form below. The UDA will review all submissions and create a shortlist for the public vote, later this year.
Why Town Squares?
Town squares are some of the most memorable and well-loved public spaces in our cities and towns. They are places where people gather, celebrate, meet friends, enjoy events, or simply sit and watch the world go by. A great square becomes the heart of a community, somewhere that feels welcoming, lively and distinctly local.
What do we mean by a Town Square?
A town square is an open public space framed by surrounding buildings or streets, designed as a place for people to gather and spend time together. These spaces are often located at the centre of a town or neighbourhood and may be associated with a civic building, church, library or town hall. They can host markets, festivals, outdoor dining, community events, or provide a place to relax and meet others.
Town squares come in many forms, from grand civic plazas in busy city centres to neighbourhood squares that anchor local communities. What they share is a sense of place: somewhere people return to again and again because it feels special.
What is NSW’s Favourite Urban Place?
To celebrate our great urban places across the state, the UDA runs the annual NSW’s Favourite Urban Place poll, inviting everyone to vote for the places they love. The winner gets a fabulous trophy, presented to the Mayor, not to mention well-deserved bragging rights!
This year, we’re shining a spotlight on town squares. From lively civic plazas to neighbourhood squares, these shared spaces bring people together and help shape the identity of our towns and cities.
What happens next?
The UDA will use your suggestions to create a shortlist of town squares. We aim to achieve a fair balance across NSW, including both metropolitan and regional locations, and avoid too many entries from a single local council area.
You can vote for your favourite squares on the shortlist in October, and the winner will be revealed in November!