The North Shore is a region within Northern Sydney, in New South Wales, Australia, generally referring to suburbs located on the northern side of Sydney Harbour up to Hornsby, and suburbs between Middle Harbour and the Lane Cove River. The term "North Shore", used to describe this region of Sydney is customary, not legal or administrative, and is often subjective.

Due to the area's greenery and manicured lawns, it has earned the nickname the 'Leafy North Shore'.

The region now referred to as the North Shore was home to a number of clans of the Eora. These included the Cammeraygal people whose traditional lands were located within what are now the Lower North Shore local government areas of North Sydney, Willoughby, Mosman, Manly and Warringah local government areas. The Cammeraygal people lived in the area until the 1820s and are recorded as being in the northern parts of the Sydney region for approximately 5,800 years. The Lower North Shore suburb of Cammeray takes its name from the clan, although the Cameragal clan was centred around, Kayyeemy, or Manly Cove.

Other clans included:

After the British establishment of Sydney in 1788, settlement on the North Shore of the harbour was quite limited. One of the first settlers was James Milson who lived in the vicinity of Jeffrey Street in Kirribilli, directly opposite Sydney Cove. The north shore was more rugged than the southern shore and western areas of the harbour and had limited agricultural potential. The early activities in the area included tree felling, boatbuilding and some orchard farming in the limited areas of good soil. The North Shore railway line was built in the 1890s. Access to the Sydney CBD, located on the southern shore of the harbour remained difficult until the completion of the Sydney Harbour Bridge in 1932. This led to the commencement of the development of suburbs on the North Shore.

Four of the five local government areas that form the Lower North Shore (the City of Willoughby and the municipalities of Mosman, Lane Cove and North Sydney) were created from the Parish of Willoughby, a cadastral unit used for land titles that was created in the early years of European settlement. "North Sydney" was formerly known as St. Leonards.

The "North Shore" is a term used to describe a region of Northern Sydney. It is a customary term, not administrative or legal, and its boundaries are not definitive.^{[citation needed]} Generally, the "North Shore" includes the peninsula north of Sydney Harbour and is bounded in the west by the Lane Cove River and National Park, in the north west by the M1 motorway to Newcastle, in the southeast by Middle Harbour, and in the northeast by Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park. East and north of this boundary are the Northern Beaches region and to the west is the general Northern Sydney region.^{[citation needed]}

Local government areas within the North Shore include City of Willoughby, Municipality of Lane Cove, North Sydney Council, Municipality of Mosman, Ku-ring-gai Council, Municipality of Hunter's Hill, and some suburbs of City of Ryde and Hornsby Shire.