MELBOURNE FACTS
Melbourne is the capital city of the state of Victoria.
The city was founded in 1835.
Batmania, Bearbrass, Bearport, Bareheep, Barehurp and Bareberp were initially bandied around as names for Melbourne - eventually, someone came to their senses and named the new settlement after William Lamb, second Viscount Melbourne and Prime Minister of Great Britain in 1837.
Thanks to the discovery of gold in Victoria in 1851, Melbourne has the best collection of Victorian architecture in Australia, largely due to profits pouring into the city.
Melbourne was Australia’s political capital from 1901 until the completion of Canberra in 1927. As well, the Royal Exhibition Building in the Melbourne suburb of Carlton was home to Australia’s first parliament.
The population of metropolitan Melbourne is approximately 3.4 million. Per capita, Melbourne has the highest concentration of Greek people of any city outside Greece. The city also has a large Vietnamese community – after Smith, the most common name in the Melbourne telephone directory is Nguyen.
The Story of Ned Kelly, made in Melbourne in 1906, is recognised as the world’s first feature film. Actors who were born in Melbourne or who have called the city home include Cate Blanchett, Guy Pearce and Geoffrey Rush. On the smaller screen, two immensely popular TV shows are filmed in Melbourne: Neighbours and The Secret Life of Us.
US General Douglas MacArthur briefly lived in Melbourne after escaping the Japanese occupation of the Philippines in 1942.
Mushroom Records, which oversaw the early careers of Kylie Minogue and Nick Cave, was founded in Melbourne in 1972.
Melbourne has over 3,000 restaurants, with more than 70 individual styles of cuisine.
The scenic railway at Luna Park in the Melbourne suburb of St Kilda is the world’s oldest operating roller coaster.
Ever wondered why Australian Football League (AFL), or ‘Aussie Rules’, is played on a cricket oval? It’s because the game of footy was originally conceived as a way of keeping Melbourne’s cricketers fit during the winter months.
Queen Victoria Market was originally built on the site of Melbourne’s first general cemetery. Thousands of bodies are still buried there.
Ned Kelly, Australia’s most famous outlaw, was hanged in the Old Melbourne Gaol on 11 November 1880.
