Illustration by John Shakespeare.

When it comes to Sydney's perennial east vs west rivalry, there are plenty of opinions and stereotypes about the spray-tanned, salmon-wearing 'silver tails' and ugg boot-bound bogan 'westies'.

And then there are facts.

Here, we've used data to explore the actual differences between life in a selection of Sydney's eastern and western suburbs. Some of it's serious, some of it's fun. Nothing here is meant to be perjorative. Because there's no 'superior' Sydney - just different ones.

Hopefully this sheds some light on the magnitude of those differences, real or imagined.