Sutherland is a suburb in southern Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Sutherland is located 30 kilometres south of the Sydney central business district and is the administrative centre for the local government area of the Sutherland Shire.

There are two theories for the origin of the Sutherland name:

It is suggested that the name was taken from able seaman Forby Sutherland, who died on Captain Cook's Endeavour voyage. Sutherland Point at Kurnell is named after him, but there's no direct connection of him to the Sutherland Shire district.
Thomas Mitchell as surveyor general in 1835 named the first parish south of the Georges River as the "Parish of Southerland" (South with an "o"). But it appeared in a later government gazette spelt Sutherland, losing the significance of the name.

Thomas Holt (1811–88) purchased 13,000 acres (53 km2) in the 1860s that stretched from Sutherland to Cronulla. The Sutherland area was originally heavily timbered and timber-cutting became the first industry. Holt initiated many commercial projects including timber cutting, coal mining, sheep farming and oyster farming. He built a forty-room mansion called Sutherland House in 1881 at Sylvania, on the bank of Gwawley Bay. The mansion was destroyed by fire in 1918, thought to have been deliberately lit.