It is 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) west of the Sydney central business district and is the administrative centre for the local government area of Municipality of Burwood.

This long association had led to a harmonious relationship between the indigenous inhabitants and their environment, which was interrupted by the arrival of the British in 1788.

The grant stretched from Parramatta Road to where Nicholson Street and The Boulevarde are today and eastwards where to Croydon railway station is now.

The first house, Burwood Villa, was built in the area in 1814, the same year that a stagecoach began running between Sydney and Parramatta.

One of its most prominent early residents was Dr. John Dulhunty, a former naval surgeon who was appointed the Superintendent of Police for the Colony of New South Wales after his arrival in Sydney from England in 1826.

Dr. Dulhunty became famous in the colony for fighting a gang of bushrangers that attacked his residence, Burwood House.

He died suddenly in the house in 1828 but his son, Robert Dulhunty, went on to become the founder of the New South Wales regional city of Dubbo.

St Paul's Anglican Church on Burwood Road was designed by colonial architect Edmund Blacket and built in 1871.

Transit Systems provide many bus services to Burwood, from Hurstville, Rockdale, Mascot, Kingsford, Strathfield, Homebush, Campsie, Ryde, Bankstown, Liverpool as well as other locations across Sydney.

Transit Systems' Burwood Bus Depot is located on the corner of Shaftesbury and Parramatta Roads.

Burwood North is a future rapid transit station to be built as part of the Sydney Metro West project.