Melbourne ( MEL-bərn, locally [ˈmæɫbən] ⓘ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: Narrm or Naarm) is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria and the second-most populous city in Australia. The city's name generally refers to a 9,993-square-kilometre (3,858 sq mi) area, comprising an urban agglomeration of 30 local government areas. The name is also used specifically to refer to the local government area, also named the City of Melbourne, whose administrative area is centred on the Melbourne central business district and some immediate surrounds.
As of June 2025, the population of the city was 5.435 million, or 19% of the population of Australia. The city occupies much of the northern and eastern coastlines of Port Phillip Bay, it is claimed to be the southernmost city in the world with a population exceeding one million. Its inhabitants are known as "Melburnians".
The area of Melbourne has been home to Aboriginal Victorians for over 40,000 years. Of the five peoples of the Kulin nation, the traditional custodians of the land encompassing Melbourne are the Boonwurrung, Woiwurrung and the Wurundjeri peoples. In 1803, a short-lived British penal settlement was established at Port Phillip, then part of the Colony of New South Wales. Melbourne was founded in 1835 with the arrival of free settlers from Van Diemen's Land (modern-day Tasmania). It was incorporated as a Crown settlement in 1837 and named after the then Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne. Declared a city by Queen Victoria in 1847, it became the capital of the newly separated Colony of Victoria in 1851. During the 1850s Victorian gold rush, the city entered a lengthy boom period that, by the late 1880s, had transformed it into one of the largest and wealthiest metropolises in both Australia and the world. After the federation of Australia in 1901, Melbourne served as the interim seat of government of the new nation until Canberra became the permanent capital in 1927.
Today, Melbourne is a leading financial centre in the Asia-Pacific region, ranking 28th globally in the 2024 Global Financial Centres Index. The city's eclectic architecture blends Victorian-era structures, such as the World Heritage–listed Royal Exhibition Building, with a large skyline. Landmarks include the Melbourne Cricket Ground and the National Gallery of Victoria. Noted for its cultural heritage, the city gave rise to Australian rules football, Australian impressionism and Australian cinema, and is known for its street art, live music and theatre scenes. It hosts major annual sporting events, such as the Australian Grand Prix and the Australian Open Grand Slam, and also hosted the 1956 Summer Olympics. Melbourne ranked as the world's most liveable city on The Economist's measure for much of the 2010s. It was also voted the world's best city by Time Out in 2026.
Melbourne Airport is the second-busiest airport in Australia and the Port of Melbourne is the nation's busiest seaport. Its main metropolitan rail terminus is Flinders Street station and its main regional rail and road coach terminus is Southern Cross station. It also has Australia's most extensive freeway network and the largest urban tram network in the world.
Name
The Port Phillip area of Victoria was known in the Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung languages as Narrm or Naarm.
Different parts of Melbourne had different traditional Indigenous names, though these do not match up exactly with modern council districts. The Melbourne city area near St Paul's (or possibly St Patrick's) Cathedral was called Geeburr, the Fitzroy area was referred to as Ngár-go, and Collingwood was known as Yálla-birr-ang in the Woiwurrung language. The wider Port Phillip Bay area is referred to as Naarm in the Woiwurrung language; in the Boonwurrung language, Naarm means "the Bay".
The city is named after the British Prime Minister William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, who was Prime Minister at the time of its founding in 1835.
History
Indigenous people
Aboriginal Australians have lived in the Melbourne area for at least 40,000 years. When British colonists arrived in the 19th century, up to 20,000 Kulin people from three distinct language groups – the Wurundjeri, Bunurong and Wathaurong – resided in the area. It was an important meeting place for the clans of the Kulin nation alliance and a vital source of food and water. In June 2021, the boundaries between the land of two of the traditional owner groups, the Wurundjeri and Bunurong, were agreed after being drawn up by the Victorian Aboriginal Heritage Council. The borderline runs across the city from west to east, with the CBD, Richmond and Hawthorn included in Wurundjeri land, and Albert Park, St Kilda and Caulfield on Bunurong land. However, this change in boundaries remains contested by individuals on both sides of the debate, including N'arweet Carolyn Briggs. Some sources indicate that the name Narrm refers to the area where Melbourne city is built; other sources indicate that Naarm refers to the wider Port Phillip Bay area in the Woiwurrung language, and means "the Bay" in the Boonwurrung language. Narrm means "scrub" in Eastern Kulin languages, which reflects the Creation Story of how the Bay was filled by the creation of the Birrarung (Yarra River). Before this, the dry Melbourne region extended out into the Bay, which was filled with tea-tree scrub where boorrimul (emu) and marram (kangaroo) were hunted.
British colonisation
The first British settlement in Victoria, then part of the penal colony of New South Wales, was established by Colonel David Collins in October 1803, at Sullivan Bay, near present-day Sorrento. The following year, due to a perceived lack of resources, these settlers relocated to Van Diemen's Land (present-day Tasmania) and founded the city of Hobart. It would be 30 years before another settlement was attempted.
In May and June 1835, John Batman, a leading member of the Port Phillip Association in Van Diemen's Land, explored the Melbourne area, and later claimed to have negotiated a purchase of 2,400 km2 (600,000 acres) with eight Wurundjeri elders. However, the nature of the treaty has been heavily disputed, as none of the parties spoke the same language, and the elders likely perceived it as part of the gift exchanges which had taken place over the previous few days amounting to a tanderrum ceremony which allows temporary access to and use of the land. Batman selected a site on the northern bank of the Yarra River, declaring that "this will be the place for a village" before returning to Van Diemen's Land. In August 1835, another group of Vandemonian settlers arrived in the area and established a settlement at the site of the current Melbourne Immigration Museum. Batman and his group arrived the following month, and the two groups ultimately agreed to share the settlement, initially known by the Indigenous name of Dootigala.
Batman's Treaty with the Aboriginal elders was annulled by Richard Bourke, the Governor of New South Wales (who at the time governed all of eastern mainland Australia), with compensation paid to members of the association. In 1836, Bourke declared the city the administrative capital of the Port Phillip District of New South Wales, and commissioned the first plan for its urban layout, the Hoddle Grid, in 1837. Previously known under various informal names, the settlement was named Melbourne on 10 April 1837 by Bourke after the British Prime Minister, William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, whose seat was Melbourne Hall in the market town of Melbourne, Derbyshire. That year, the settlement's general post office officially opened with that name.
Between 1836 and 1842, Victorian Aboriginal groups were largely dispossessed of their land by British colonists. In 1840, the Superintendent of the Port Phillip District, Charles La Trobe, issued a directive to banish Aboriginal people from the immediate vicinity of Melbourne. This was enforced later that same year by the mass arrest and imprisonment of hundreds of Indigenous people during the Lettsom raid. However, Aboriginal people continued to live near the settlement, and by January 1844, there were said to be 675 residing in squalid camps around Melbourne. The British Colonial Office had appointed five Aboriginal Protectors for the Aboriginal people of Victoria, in 1839, but their work was nullified by a land policy that favoured squatters who took possession of Aboriginal lands. By 1845, fewer than 240 wealthy Europeans held all the pastoral licences then issued in Victoria; this group would remain a powerful political and economic force in the colony for generations. Letters patent of Queen Victoria, issued on 25 June 1847, declared Melbourne a city. On 1 July 1851, the Port Phillip District separated from New South Wales to become the Colony of Victoria, with Melbourne as its capital.
Victorian gold rush
The discovery of gold in Victoria in mid-1851 sparked a gold rush, and Melbourne, the colony's major port, experienced rapid growth. Within months, the city's population had nearly doubled from 25,000 to 40,000 inhabitants. Exponential growth ensued, and by 1865, Melbourne had overtaken Sydney as Australia's most populous city.
An influx of intercolonial and international migrants, particularly from Europe and China, saw the establishment of slums, including Chinatown and a temporary "tent city" on the southern banks of the Yarra. In the aftermath of the 1854 Eureka Rebellion, mass public support for the plight of the miners resulted in major political changes to the colony, including improvements in working conditions across mining, agriculture, manufacturing and other local industries. At least twenty nationalities took part in the rebellion, giving some indication of immigration flows at the time.
With the wealth brought in from the gold rush and the subsequent need for public buildings, a program of grand civic construction soon began. The 1850s and 1860s saw the commencement of Parliament House, the Treasury Building, the Old Melbourne Gaol, Victoria Barracks, the State Library, the University of Melbourne, the General Post Office, Customs House, the Melbourne Town Hall, and St Patrick's Cathedral, though many remained incomplete for decades.
The layout of the inner suburbs on a largely one-mile grid pattern, cut through by wide radial boulevards and parklands surrounding the central city, was largely established in the 1850s and 1860s. These areas rapidly filled with the ubiquitous terrace houses, as well as with detached houses and grand mansions, while some of the major roads developed as shopping streets. Melbourne quickly became a major finance centre, home to several banks, the Royal Mint, and (in 1861) Australia's first stock exchange. In 1855, the Melbourne Cricket Club secured possession of its now famous ground, the MCG. Members of the Melbourne Football Club codified Australian football in 1859, and in 1861, the first Melbourne Cup race was held. Melbourne acquired its first public monument, the Burke and Wills statue, in 1864.
With the gold rush largely over by 1860, Melbourne continued to grow through ongoing gold mining, its role as the major port for exporting Victoria's agricultural products—especially wool—and a developing manufacturing sector protected by high tariffs. An extensive radial railway network spread into the countryside from the late 1850s. Construction started on further major public buildings in the 1860s and 1870s, such as the Supreme Court, Government House, and the Queen Victoria Market. The central city filled up with shops and offices, workshops, and warehouses. Large banks and hotels faced the main streets, with fine townhouses in the east end of Collins Street, contrasting with tiny cottages down laneways within the blocks. The Aboriginal population continued to decline, with an estimated 80% total decrease by 1863, due primarily to introduced diseases (particularly smallpox), frontier violence and dispossession of their lands.
Land boom and bust
The 1880s saw extraordinary growth: consumer confidence, easy access to credit, and steep increases in land prices led to an enormous amount of construction. During this "land boom", Melbourne reputedly became the richest city in the world, and the second-largest (after London) in the British Empire.
The decade began with the Melbourne International Exhibition in 1880, held in the large purpose-built Exhibition Building. A telephone exchange was established that year, and the foundations of St Paul's were laid. In 1881, electric light was installed in the Eastern Market, and a generating station capable of supplying 2,000 incandescent lamps was in operation by 1882. The Melbourne cable tramway system opened in 1885 and became one of the world's most extensive systems by 1890.
In 1885, visiting English journalist George Augustus Henry Sala and Joe Harold coined the phrase "Marvellous Melbourne", which stuck long into the twentieth century and has come to refer to the opulence and energy of the 1880s, during which time large commercial buildings, grand hotels, banks, coffee palaces, terrace housing and palatial mansions proliferated in the city. The establishment of the Melbourne Hydraulic Power Company in 1886 led to the availability of high-pressure piped water, allowing for the installation of hydraulically powered elevators, which led to the construction of the first high-rise buildings in the city. The period also saw the huge expansion of a significant radial rail-based transport network throughout the city and suburbs.
Melbourne's land boom peaked in 1888, the year it hosted the Centennial Exhibition. The brash boosterism that had typified Melbourne during that time ended in the early 1890s. The bubble supporting the local finance and property industries burst, resulting in a severe economic depression. Sixteen small land banks and building societies collapsed, and 133 limited companies went into liquidation. The Melbourne financial crisis was a contributing factor to the Australian economic depression of the 1890s and the Australian banking crisis of 1893. The effects of the depression on the city were profound, with virtually no significant construction until the late 1890s.
Temporary capital of Australia and World War II
At the time of Australia's federation on 1 January 1901, Melbourne became the seat of government of the federated Commonwealth of Australia. The first federal parliament convened on 9 May 1901 in the Royal Exhibition Building, subsequently moving to the Victorian Parliament House, where it sat until it moved to Canberra in 1927. The Governor-General of Australia resided at Government House in Melbourne until 1930, and many major national institutions remained in Melbourne well into the twentieth century. During World War II, the city hosted American military forces who were fighting the Empire of Japan, and the government requisitioned the Melbourne Cricket Ground for military use.