Cessnock is a city in the Hunter Region of New South Wales, Australia, about by road west of Newcastle. It is the administrative centre of the City of Cessnock LGA and was named after an 1826 grant of land called Cessnock Estate, which was owned by John Campbell. The local area was once known as "The Coalfields", and it is the gateway city to the vineyards of the Hunter Valley, which includes Pokolbin, Mount View, Lovedale, Broke, Rothbury, and Branxton. History The Wonnarua people are the Traditional Owners of the Cessnock area. Many were killed or died as a result of European diseases after colonisation. Others were forced onto neighbouring tribal territory and killed. The city of Cessnock features many Indigenous place names including Congewai, Kurri Kurri, Laguna, Nulkaba and Wollombi. Lying between Australia's earliest European settlements – Sydney, the Hawkesbury River and Newcastle, pastoralists commenced settlement of the land in the 1820s. Cessnock was named by Scottish settler John Campbell, after his grandfather's baronial Cessnock Castle in Galston, East Ayrshire, to reflect the aristocratic heritage and ambitions for this estate. The township of Cessnock developed from 1850, as a service centre at the junction of the Great North Road from Sydney to the Hunter Valley, with branches to Maitland and Singleton. The establishment of the South Maitland coalfields generated extensive land settlement between 1903 and 1923. The current pattern of urban development, transport routes and industrial landscape was laid at this time. The surveying of the Greta coal seam by Professor Edgeworth David around 1888 became the impetus for considerable social and economic change in the area with the development of the coal mining industry. Demographics According to the 2016 census of Population, there were 21,725 people in the Cessnock urban centre. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people made up 8.2% of the population. 86.8% of people were born in Australia. The next most common countries of birth were England 1.6%, New Zealand 0.9% and Scotland 0.5%. 88.3% of people spoke only English at home. The most common responses for religion were Anglican 27.5%, No Religion 24.6% and Catholic 18.9%. Economy The decline of mining on the South Maitland Coalfields has been paralleled by growth in the wine industry and better access to other employment centres. The Hunter Valley wine-growing area near Cessnock is Australia's oldest wine region and one of the most famous, with around under vine. The