Melbourne City

The city's name is pronounced "MEL-buhn", The city's motto is the Latin "Vires acquirit eundo" which means "we gather strength as we go".

Melbourne has twice ranked first in a survey by The Economist of "The World's Most Livable Cities", once in 2002, and again in 2004. It is sometimes classed as a "world city"; one study group ranks Melbourne, on the basis of relative availability of specialised "advanced services" as a "minor world city" comparable to cities such as Vancouver, Osaka, and Prague.

Australia's second largest city,with a diverse population of many backgrounds. This international influence, combined with Melbourne's long history and thriving artistic scene, supports the city's claim to be the Cultural Capital of Australia.


Melbourne is located in the south-eastern corner of mainland Australia, and is the southernmost mainland capital city. It looks out on to Port Phillip, its suburbs sprawling to the east, following the Yarra River out to the Yarra and Dandenong Ranges, south-east to the mouth of the bay, and following the Maribyrnong River and its tributaries west and north to flat farming country. The central business district (the original city) is laid out in the famous mile-by-half-a-mile Hoddle Grid, its southern edge fronting on to the Yarra.

Melbourne is a large commercial and industrial centre, with many of Australia's largest companies, and many multinational corporations (approximately one-third of the 100 largest multinationals operating in Australia as of 2002) headquartered there.


It is home to Australia's largest seaport, seven universities (the University of Melbourne, Monash University, Deakin University, Victoria University, La Trobe University, RMIT University, and Swinburne University), and much of Australia's automotive industry (including the engine manufacturing facility of Holden, and the Ford and Toyota manufacturing facilities) amongst many other manufacturing industries.


Melbourne was founded on 10 May 1835 by a group of free settlers led by John Batman and John Pascoe Fawkner, unlike some of Australia's capital cities which were founded as penal colonies (Adelaide and Perth are other notable exceptions). With the discovery of gold in central Victoria in the 1850s, leading to the Victorian gold rush, Melbourne quickly grew as a port to service the necessary trade. During the 1880s, Melbourne was the second largest city in the British Empire, and came to be known as "Marvellous Melbourne". Melbourne today is home to the largest number of surviving Victorian Era buildings of any city in the world other than London.

Melbourne became Australia's national capital at Federation on 1 January 1901. The first Federal parliament was opened on 9 May 1901 in the Royal Exhibition Building. The seat of government and the national capital remained in Melbourne until 9 May 1927 when the provisional Parliament House was opened in the new capital city of Canberra.


Melbourne continued to expand steadily throughout the first half of the 20th century, particularly with the post-World War II influx of immigrants and the prestige of hosting the Olympic Games in 1956. This was the first time the Olympic Games had ever been held in the Southern Hemisphere (the only other time was when Sydney hosted the Games in 2000). Throughout the 1990s, the Victorian state government of Premier Jeff Kennett (Liberal) began a campaign with aggressive development of new public buildings (such as the Crown Casino, the Melbourne Museum, and the Melbourne Exhibition and Convention Centre) and publicising Melbourne's merits both to outsiders and Melburnians. This has continued under the government of current Premier Steve Bracks (Labor).

Melbourne is split into various Local Government Areas each with their own Councils. One of these is the City of Melbourne - covering the central business district. The City's current Lord Mayor is John So, who was inaugurated in 2001, after the first direct election of a Lord Mayor for the city.

Melbourne is built on the land of the Kulin nation, the original Aboriginal inhabitants of the area.