Despite Sydney's larger population, Melbourne is Australia's second-most populous major city. More than 9900 km2 in size, Greater Melbourne's suburbs sprawl all over large, flat volcanic rock lowlands to the west, and broaden more than 40 km to the south, 30 km to the east, and 20 km to the north from the city centre.
The municipality of Melbourne includes the central city as well as the inner suburbs of Melbourne metro region. About 37 sq.km in size, our municipality shares borders with seven other incorporated areas. Many government and non-government organisations, as well as the headquarters of several large Australian and international corporations, are based in Melbourne, the capital of Victoria.
Despite the city's many beautiful parks, Melbourne's flat topography has led to the typical development of a rectangular street network. Those with an eye for architecture and a love of history will be thoroughly satisfied.
The city's expanding skyline is a reflection of the city's notoriety for fiscal restraint and the rapid development of its eastern suburbs.
Area Including the city proper (14 sq. mi./36 sq. km. ), the inner city (33 sq. mi./86 sq. km. ), and the rest of the statistical division (2,971 sq (7,695 square km). Pop. (2016) (2016) Melbourne Statistical Division: 4,485,211; City of Melbourne: 135 969; Inner Melbourne: 591 679.
FAQs About Melbourne
I would describe Melbourne as fun, vibrant and lively. It is an epicentre for sports, arts and entertainment - and a foodie's paradise!
There are a few places I could choose from, but I think it would likely involve a lazy afternoon stroll down Smith Street, Fitzroy. There are so many little shops to check out, and the street has so much character.
I think many of Melbourne’s up and coming designers and vintage shops can be found on Smith Street. There are also many great ethnic cuisine options – it’s affordable, and everything is within walking distance. I could spend a whole day there exploring!
There are so many to choose from! David’s in South Yarra is great – they do Asian, sort of Northern Chinese type cuisine. It’s authentic food, and I think it’s quite well priced for the quality of food that you get. The service is great, and it's very true to the Chinese culture – it’s rare to see, but it’s almost quite traditional to the culture. It’s well done.
Two other restaurants well worth visiting are Gorski & Jones on Smith Street and Pabu – also on Smith Street! Pabu serves Japanese tapas, which are delicious.
You can’t go wrong in Melbourne. There are many huge shopping centres around the city and the suburbs if you want to go a little further out. My personal favourite is Chadstone, but the Westfield in Doncaster is also amazing – it’s huge. Shopping is something that you’re going to find plenty of in Melbourne.
Bad weather, good scenery! No, I would probably pitch the city as full of little secrets – there are the bars, cafes and the little music venues dotted around the city, which are great.
The good thing about Melbourne is that for every 10 minutes you spend looking around Melbourne, you’ll find hours’ worth of other things to do. Every street has heaps of little alleyways off it, and every part of town, like Fitzroy or Brunswick, has so many little things that you didn’t expect to find. Melbourne is all about discovery.
The landscape
The City Location
The metropolitan area of Melbourne is located in northern Port Phillip Bay, 30 nautical miles (nm) from the bay's short entrance (about 55 km). The low-lying areas have an average elevation of less than 120 m (390 feet).
The geography of the area has had a significant role in Melbourne's development from its beginnings at the mouth of the Riverfront to its present day shape. The valleys to the north of the old city site were levelled by basalt flows during the Cenozoic Era.
In contrast, the eastern section is made up of layers of Silurian and Devonian mudstone, shales, and conglomerates. The eastern part, with its richer soils and higher annual rainfall, had a far greater tree cover than the basalt plains. It is not surprising that the vast eastern lands between Compared to other similar Creek and the Yarra and Yarra Rivers in addition to Koonung & Gardiner's creeks have been the primary sites of Melbourne's development.
From the mouth of the Near to Point Nepean, a length of 60 miles, Melbourne's Ports Phillip Bay is today lined by a remarkable asymmetrical urban sprawl (97 km). While almost 20 miles of the bay's eastern shore have been developed, the western 10 miles have barely begun to scratch the surface (16 km).
Climate
High pressure cells migrating eastward, related to low pressure troughs, are responsible for Melbourne's weather. These patterns go north of Victoria in the winter and south of Australia in the summer.
There are an average of inches (660 mm) of rain in a year, with October being the rainiest and January being the driest. Temperatures rarely drop below freezing, averaging a mild 55 degrees F (13 degrees Centigrade) in the middle of summer and a balmy 79 farenheit (26 degrees Centigrade) in the middle of winter.
Due to winds associated with weather systems moving west, Melbourne is largely spared from the severe ozone pollution that affects other big cities.
The City Plan
The initial settlement area of Melbourne, laid out with a rectangular pattern that has not evolved over time, now serves as the city's financial, legal, governmental, and pastoral hub. The Yarra River forms the western boundary of the property.
Within this central district you'll find the Melbourne Trading Platform, the head office of major banks, and a plethora of other financial institutions. You'll also find Victoria's House of Parliament, the Church but also Roman Catholic old churches, art history but instead entertainment venues, museums and art galleries, the Legal System, the National Library, and a number of other government buildings.
Two major streets in the area, Bourke and Scheduled ", are now pedestrian malls after being turned into pedestrian zones by banning vehicle traffic. Even though most of the city's buildings date from the 20th and 21st centuries, the Town Hall, its Legal System, and the Expo Buildings are outstanding examples of official civic architecture from of the 19th century.
The city is divided into 14 "precincts," or sections, each with its own identity based on variables including population density, commercial activity, and points of interest.
The oldest suburbs, including Carlton, Collingwood, Camberwell, Prahran, St. Petersburg, and Brighton, all have a similar square street plan. Close to the heart of the city, verandas of row houses were embellished with iron lacework. South Melbourne and Carlton both have examples of these older terraces.
The People
Immigration Patterns
When the population of Melbourne was tallied for the first time in 1836, 177 people were counted, and 35 of those were women. In the 1850s, Victoria had a population boom as a result of the city's closeness to the country's gold fields. The majority of settlers arrived from neighbouring Australian states and former British colonies.
By the 1920s, Melbourne was home to more than half of Victoria's residents, and at the end of Wwii, the city had grown to a population of the one million. This trend continued throughout the whole century of the 2000s. More than seven out of ten Victorians called the Melbourne metropolitan area home in the year 2000.
As the government actively recruited new inhabitants to staff the burgeoning industrial sector, the 1950s witnessed Australia's second huge influx of immigrants, this again from Europe. Immigrants received help from the Australian government with settlement costs, language training, and job placement.
At initially, the majority of immigrants were refugees from the conflict in the Balkan or eastern Europe. Then, people from Britain and Ireland began arriving en masse. Countries including the Dutch, Malta, West Germany, Tuscany, Greece, even Austria have all signed agreements to streamline the immigration process.
Due to these efforts, Melbourne currently has a thriving multiethnic community. In the 1970s, non-English speakers made up 20% of the city's population; the largest groupings of these people were Italians, Greeks, then Yugoslavs. Southeast Asian immigrants, particularly Vietnamese and Cambodian refugees, arrived in large numbers in the early 1980s.
Relocate To The suburbs.
In the 1940s, approximately 90% of Melbourne's residents live within 16 km (10 miles) of the central business centre. As suburbs spread further and further out, this percentage fell below 50% by the 1980s.
By 1966, Melbourne's population had topped 2 million, prompting a rapid expansion of the city limits eastward. In the beginning, most newcomers from southern Europe lived in older industrial zones due to cheaper rents and greater proximity to available jobs. Previous waves of immigration have developed support networks in certain areas.
Increasing numbers of these people, as the economy recovered, were able to realise the "Australian Ideal" of owning a home in the suburbs on a fractional lot. By the mid-1990s, more than three million people were living in this area. There was, however, a countertrend to this suburbanization around the turn of the century.
Many historic structures in the heart of the city have been refurbished and turned into modern apartments. While people from all walks of life and occupations can be found in Melbourne's suburbs, some western districts do give off a more working-class vibe.
The Economy
Commerce And Industry
Since the majority of Victoria's population resides inside the city, Melbourne is unsurprisingly the state's economic hub. Victoria's political and economic hub, as well as a key node in the state's communications network.
The majority of the city's employment opportunities are concentrated in the downtown area, while growth is quickest in the suburbs. Banking, insurance, retail, shows, hotels, and taxis all contribute significantly to the city's economy.
Partially around this core are the commercial inner suburbs, which grew up around the first textile and metalworks built there in the 19th century. It was after WWII that the eastern suburbs saw the emergence of small manufacturing centres. Large tracts of relatively inexpensive property, less traffic on the roads, and an increasing population could all be on offer in these prospective new suburbs.
Initiated in the 1990s, Docklands is an ambitious proposal to redevelop a 500-acre (200 hectare) area of ageing industrial and dockyards into a multi-use development that would include innovative technology businesses, parks and public spaces, restaurants, a theme park, and a wide range of residential options. An estimated 15,000 permanent residents and 20,000 employees would make up the majority of Docklands' future population. When the new millennium rolled around, one of the first significant structures to open was the sports arena known as Colonial Stadium.
In terms of employment, Melbourne's most important market is metal processing, which includes the transport equipment and engineering sectors. Besides being crucial to the economy, industries such as textile and clothing production, food processing, papers and printing, chemical production, furniture and fixtures production, and construction material production are also vital. Moreover, Melbourne already a leading name in Australia's burgeoning biomedical & biotechnological industries, and it is quickly becoming a centre for these sectors as well.
South-west of the central business district, on reclaimed ground at the mouth of the Yarra River, is where you'll find London. This port is the most important in the country due to the sheer number of general commodities it processes each year. Materials including food, crude oil and oil-based products, chemicals, and metals like steel and iron are among the most frequently handled goods.
The CBD of Melbourne rapidly lost its status as the city's principal retail destination due to the expansion of outlying shopping malls 1960s. Still, both locals and visitors alike are profoundly influenced by the fashion industry's megastores and hipster outposts.
Transportation
Melbourne's integrated network of trams, buses, but also electric trains makes taking the public transit system a pleasure. Melbourne's motorway network, which contains the West Ring Road, was significantly improved and expanded in the 1990s, allowing for better connections to the city's neighbouring states and beyond.
The City Link project included the construction of a bridge, a tunnel, highway expansion packs, and interchanges, all with the goal of linking together three major motorways. There is a network of subway stations that provides service to the central business district. Tullamarine is Melbourne's primary domestic and international airport, located 23 kilometres (14 kms) from the city centre.
Administration And Social Circumstances
Government
The Victorian state government, which is ultimately accountable for major development choices, provides Melbourne's essential health, educational, & transportation services. There are more than 30 separate groups inside the Melbourne Statistic Division that provide local government services.
Voting for a lordship mayor and the council is done only by mail. Members of the council are paid for their time and serve as advocates for the city at large. Construction rules, citisen amenities, garbage pickup, and parking regulations are all examples of areas where local councils are charged with making and enforcing laws. These projects are mostly supported by property tax revenue (rates).
Education And Health
Since its beginning in 1846, the system of free hospitals in the United States has grown to encompass not only regular hospital and also high quality that serve a wide range of ailments and patient populations. There are also a number of private hospitals in the area.
There are three campuses of Deakin University, which was created in 1974, as well as the Melbourne University (established in 1853) and the Monash and La Victoria universities (both established in the 1960s). Many different types of academic and technical degrees and certificates can be earned at Melbourne's universities and schools of advanced education.
Cultural life
Arts
The Victorian Artists Centre, which was built from 1968 to 1984 on the south riverbank of the Near in the centre of Melbourne, greatly enriched the city's already booming artistic landscape. Within its walls can be found a number of theatres, the Victorian Concert Hall, as well as the Museum of Victoria.
The Museum of Victoria first opened in 1861, but it moved to its current home in the art space in 1968. Among the many significant collections kept there are Australian works spanning the colonial era to the current day, European works (especially those from the 18th century), and decorative arts.
Seating capacity of the Melbourne Music Venue is 2,600. Customers love the hall not only because of its excellent acoustic engineering but also because of its stunning decoration in colours borrowed from the gem or mining sector, giving the impression it was cut out of a hillside.
The State Theatre, Theatre, George Fairfax Studio, the Black Box provide spaces for operas, dance, stage performances, theatre, hang humor, cabaret, and a broad variety of music.
Outdoor amphitheatre with a capacity of 13,000, the Sidney Kse Concert Bowl can be found at King's Domain Gardens directly across from the performing arts centre. Opera, ballet, or concert music seasons regularly feature guest artists from throughout the world. The Melbourne Symphony has been around since 1949 and has played in several of Australia's main cities as well as in Japan & New Zealand.
Recreation
Victoria, or "Garden State," is often featured on licence plates all around the province. Parks and reserves cover about a fifth of Melbourne's central city, making it an appropriate capital for a sunshine state. Some areas were designated around the middle of the 19th century, when municipal authorities in many other cities were more interested with commercial expansion than with quality of life. Large expanses of land in newer exurbs have been reserved as parks.
The Royal Botanic Gardens are Melbourne's most well-known park (RBG). The park's 89 acres (36 hectares) were planned out in 1846, and it today features lakes, open grassland spaces, and hundreds of uniquely labelled trees and plants.
The National Herbarium for Victoria has about 1,200,000 preserved plant specimens, which attracts researchers from all around the world. The RBG's tract of land (80-hectare) campus in Cranbourne is located around 48 kilometres (30 kilometres) south-east of metropolitan Melbourne.
Melbourne has a plethora of options for sporting events. You can choose from dozens of golf resorts, tennis courts, and swimming pools. The Melbourne Sports Complex is a superb spectator arena, accommodating up to 100,000 people for cricket and Australian rules football matches. Every year in November, the Melbourne Cup is run at the historic Flemington Racecourse.
During 1956, Australia's capital city of Melbourne played home to the Summer Olympics. Among the newest sporting venues in the Melbourne area is a massive tennis stadium. Infrastructure improvements, including a Cricket Pitch, have been built since the Olympics. In the winter, visitors may hit the slopes on Mount Buller, while in the summer, surfers can ride the waves at any of the coastal beaches.
Melbourne's History
Early Settlement
In 1802, European explorers Lieutenant John Hamilton & Captain Matthew Flinders discovered Port Phillip Bay by chance. It was one of the colonies that New South Wales incorporated at the time. The colony's governor, Philip Gidley King, tasked the colony's surveyor-general, John Grimes, with exploring the bay's shores for suitable settlement sites.
In 1803, when Grimes and company started out to investigate the country around Melbourne, they stumbled across the Rivers Near & made their way along its lower course. When it was decided that everyone would eventually settle near the Yarra River, Grimes was the least enthusiastic. Sorrento, on the east coast, not far from the opening of the bay, was the location of a settlement founded later that year by Captain David Collin and his detachment of troops and prisoners. However, he quickly realised that they had arrived in the incorrect location and moved his family to Tasmania.
The first permanent European settlement in the area wasn't established until 1835, when pioneer settler and entrepreneur John Batman negotiated a pact with local tribe chiefs to purchase 500,000 acres at the entrance of Port Phillip Bay. We reached an agreement on a figure that was comparable to 40 comforters, 30 axe, 100 knives, 50 shears, 30 mirrors, 2,000 bandannas, 100 kilos of flour, and Six shirts. There was an annual "rent of homage" in kind that Batman and his heirs had to pay per the terms of the contract.
About 2 months after the agreement was struck and a few weeks after Batman left, a pioneer group led by John Fawkner landed on the banks of the Yarra River. Many Melburnians believe that Batman or the Gatherings of People should be recognised as the city's progenitor.
Although their claims seem to be roughly equal, Fawkner deserves credit for his role in the development and consolidation of the community. At the age of 26, Joker signed a treaty that was ultimately rejected by the governor of New South Wales. By the time batman passed away at the age of 38, his assets were in disarray and his property had already been entirely devastated by court issues over his will. Fawkner lived to the ripe old age of 76, proving his longevity.
Before his demise in Melbourne in 1869, he had accomplished a great deal: he had opened hotels, a newspaper, and a book publishing business; he had purchased extensive areas of land; and he had served for age 18 as a member of a Legislative Council.
