Victoria is a state in the southeastern corner of Australia. It is the smallest of the mainland states in area, but it is the most densely populated, with a large majority of people living in cities. In population, it is second only to New South Wales. About three-fourths of Victoria’s inhabitants live in Melbourne, the state’s capital city. Victoria is a highly industrialized state, and most of its people work in manufacturing and commerce. Victoria is sometimes called the Garden State because the land is well suited to farming and because of Melbourne’s many beautiful public gardens.
People
Population.
Victoria has about a quarter of the population of Australia. About 70 percent of all Victorians were born in Australia. Of those born overseas, about 10 percent were born in China, India, or the United Kingdom. Other large immigrant groups include people born in Italy, New Zealand, the Philippines, and Vietnam. About 1 percent of the people living in Victoria identify themselves as descendants of Aboriginal peoples or Torres Strait Islander peoples.
Schools.
All children ages 6 to 17 are required to attend school. About two-thirds of Victoria’s children attend government schools. Victoria also has a private school system. Religious organizations, such as the Catholic Education Office, run most private schools.
The state government administers the main technical education system, called the Technical and Further Education system (TAFE). There are also several private organizations that provide further education.
Victoria has 10 universities. Seven are based in Melbourne. They are (1) the University of Melbourne, (2) Monash University, (3) La Trobe University, (4) the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), (5) Swinburne University of Technology, (6) Victoria University, and (7) a campus of the nationwide Australian Catholic University. Another campus of the Australian Catholic University is in Ballarat. Victoria’s other universities are Deakin University, Federation University Australia, and the University of Ballarat (formerly a College of Advanced Education).
Land and climate
With an area of 87,837 square miles (227,496 square kilometers), Victoria is the smallest of Australia’s mainland states. Among the Australian states, only the island of Tasmania covers a smaller area. Victoria’s greatest width from east to west is 490 miles (789 kilometers), and its greatest distance from north to south is 290 miles (467 kilometers). Victoria has a coastline 1,042 miles (1,677 kilometers) in length. Its shores face the Great Australian Bight; Bass Strait, across which lies Tasmania; and the Tasman Sea.
The south bank of the Murray River, which travels 1,609 miles (2,589 kilometers) from the Australian Alps to its mouth in South Australia, forms most of Victoria’s northern boundary with New South Wales. The rest of this boundary extends 110 miles (177 kilometers) to Cape Howe, on the eastern coast. Victoria’s western boundary, with South Australia, is a straight line 280 miles (450 kilometers) long. It extends south from the Murray River to Discovery Bay.
Land regions.
Victoria is divided into four basic land regions. They are (1) the Coastal Belt, (2) the Mountains and Tablelands Region, (3) the Murray Basin Slopes, and (4) the Lower Murray Basin Region.
The Coastal Belt
includes the coastal plains surrounding Port Phillip Bay. The major cities of Melbourne and Geelong are in this region, along the bay. East of the Port Phillip Bay region lies Gippsland, a long coastal plain of rich livestock-raising country that rises farther inland until it reaches the foothills of the Great Dividing Range. Gippsland is bordered on the south by a series of large lakes and swamps and by the Ninety Mile Beach, a long sand bar. West of the Port Phillip Bay region is a broad volcanic plain. Grasslands stretch across much of this region to the western border of Victoria and serve as pasture for sheep and cattle.
The southwestern region of Victoria’s coastline is known as Shipwreck Coast. Hundreds of ships are known to have sunk off this rugged area of coastline. Over millions of years, wind and water have shaped many spectacular stacks of limestone rock along the seashore. The most famous of these formations, a group known as the Twelve Apostles, is among the attractions in Port Campbell National Park.
The Mountains and Tablelands Region
includes the Australian Alps, which rise close to the New South Wales border. The Alps, a popular region for skiing, are part of the Great Dividing Range, which extends as far north as northern Queensland. The highest peak of the Australian Alps in Victoria is Mount Bogong, which rises to 6,516 feet (1,986 meters) above sea level. To the west, the Alps trail away to form the central Victorian hills.
The Murray Basin Slopes
spreads northward from the Great Dividing Range to the Murray River and New South Wales border. This region includes the Murray Plains of north-central Victoria. It is an open and lightly timbered grazing land.
The Lower Murray Basin Region
includes the Mallee and Wimmera districts of northwestern Victoria. This is drier country, made up of rocks and sand left behind by the sea. In the far northwest are the semiarid, uneven sand ridges of the Mallee, lightly covered with a low scrub. The Wimmera district lies south of the Mallee and contains Victoria’s most extensive wheatlands.
Rivers and lakes.
Most of the major rivers of Victoria flow north from the Dividing Range into the Murray, or south from the range into the sea. One of the exceptions is the Wimmera River, which flows north through western Victoria to the Little Desert and Lake Hindmarsh.
The Murray River, Victoria’s northern border, is Australia’s greatest river. Its main Victorian tributaries include the Mitta Mitta, Kiewa, Ovens, Goulburn, Campaspe, and Loddon rivers. The Hume Reservoir, east of Albury-Wodonga on the Murray, is one of Australia’s largest artificial lakes. It controls flooding farther down the river.
The Gippsland Lakes, an extensive group of interconnected saltwater lagoons in eastern Victoria, cover 140 square miles (365 square kilometers). They are open to the sea across a shallow sand bar at Lakes Entrance.
Victoria’s largest lakes are saltwater lakes in the western part of the state. Many of the lakes in the northwest are fed by rivers and sometimes dry up in the summer. Lake Tyrell is usually dry. A factory extracts salt from the lake bed. The lakes in the southwest accumulate water in craters formed by volcanoes. Victoria’s largest lake, Lake Corangamite, spans an area of about 90 square miles (230 square kilometers). Lake Corangamite is also a salt lake. No rivers flow from it.
Climate.
Victoria has a temperate climate. It is generally dry and warm in summer and wet and cool in winter. The northern and northwestern plains are close to the central Australian desert and are subject to northerly winds from the desert. This region is hotter and drier than the rest of the state. The mountainous northeast is the coldest and wettest part of the state. Snow falls in this mountainous area every winter, but it is rare for other parts of the state to receive snow. South of the Dividing Range, southerly winds produce a cooler climate and more regular rainfall. 
The average January maximum temperature is over 90 °F (32 °C) in parts of the northwest, under 75 °F (24 °C) along the coast, and under 68 °F (20 °C) on the higher mountains. Average July maximums at lower elevations range between 50 and 60 °F (10 and 16 °C). Temperatures frequently fall below the freezing point in the mountains. Rainfall ranges from an annual average of 12 inches (31 centimeters) in the northwest to 35 inches (89 centimeters) in the southeast. Annual rainfalls of 70 inches (178 centimeters) have been recorded in the northeastern part of the state.
Economy
Agriculture.
Less than 5 percent of Victoria’s workers are farmers. The far northwest is semidesert, with rich, irrigated, fruit-growing areas along the Murray River. Farmers grow grain and hay in northwestern and western Victoria. The main cereal grains are barley, oats, wheat, and triticale (a hybrid grain produced by crossing wheat and rye). Nursery products and broccoli, mushrooms, potatoes, tomatoes, and other vegetables are grown in the state.
Much of Victoria’s farmland is used for sheep grazing. These farms are mainly in the western part of the state. The raising of hogs and chickens are also major farming industries in the state. Poultry is primarily raised in the Melbourne area. Victoria produces about two-thirds of the Australian milk output. The milk is used for butter, cheese, and processed milk products. Victoria’s farmers export a large portion of the state’s dairy products and sell the rest within Australia. Beef cattle are raised throughout most of Victoria.
There is a small fishing industry in Victoria. Abalones, rock lobster, sardines, and whiting are among the most common catches. Victoria also has a growing aquaculture industry, mainly raising abalones, eels, mussels, salmon, tropical fish, and trout.
Water, irrigation, mining, and power.
Victoria’s irrigation systems provide much water through the Murray and Goulburn-Loddon systems. Australia’s highest dam, the 590-foot (180-meter) Dartmouth Dam, was completed in 1979. It fills Victoria’s largest reservoir, on the Mitta Mitta River. The Eildon Reservoir, on the Goulburn River, and the Hume Reservoir, on the Murray River, provide irrigation and hydroelectric power.
The main supply of electric power for Victoria is generated from the vast brown-coal resources in the La Trobe Valley, in Gippsland. Large power stations are at Loy Yang, Newport, and Yallourn. Hydroelectric stations at Eildon and Kiewa also generate electric power. Snowy Hydro Limited, formerly known as the Snowy Mountains Hydro-electric Authority, provides additional power for the state.
Victoria’s leading mineral products include natural gas, oil, and coal. Natural gas was discovered off the Gippsland coast in 1965. Oil was discovered in commercial quantities off the Gippsland coast in 1967. Other important mined products of Victoria include clay, gold, gypsum, and limestone.
Manufacturing and construction.
Manufacturing industries have traditionally formed Victoria’s main economic base, although they have been declining in relation to other parts of the economy. About 10 percent of the state’s workers are employed in the manufacturing sector. About 30 percent of all jobs in Australian manufacturing are based in Victoria. Other important economic sectors in the state include wholesale and retail trade, real estate and business services, and construction.
The engineering and metal trades are by far the largest segment of Victoria’s manufacturing industry. Heavy and light engineering and the construction of aircraft, farm machinery, and ships are well-established industries. Other important areas include food and beverage production and the petroleum and chemical industries.
Most of Victorian manufacturing is centered in Melbourne. Geelong is the second biggest manufacturing center. Power production has assisted industrial growth in the La Trobe Valley. Ballarat, Bendigo, Wangaratta << WANG guh RAH tuh >>, Shepparton, Warrnambool, Portland, and Wodonga have developed some industries.
Transportation and communication.
Victoria’s roads, railroads, and air and shipping lines all radiate from Melbourne. They link the state capital with other parts of the state, other states, and locations overseas. Melbourne has one of the largest tram (streetcar) networks in the world. Melbourne has an international airport. Major ports are at Geelong, Melbourne, and Portland.
Government
Executive.
The British monarch—Australia’s symbolic head of state—appoints a governor for Victoria, on the advice of the Victorian government. However, the governor’s post is largely ceremonial. A premier actually heads the government. A Cabinet of ministers assists the premier. The Cabinet usually decides on new legislation, which the minister responsible for the area affected by the legislation then submits to Parliament.
Legislature.
The state government has a Parliament with two houses. The upper house is called the Legislative Council. The lower house is called the Legislative Assembly. Cabinet ministers must be members of either house of Parliament. Most ministers are members of the Assembly. In Victoria, as in the rest of Australia, voting is compulsory for all Australian citizens who are at least 18 and meet certain residential qualifications. All legislation has to be signed by the governor as the representative of the monarch. In practice, the governor acts on the advice of state government ministers.
For Legislative Council elections, Victoria is divided into eight electoral regions. Each region is represented by five members who are elected for four-year terms. For Legislative Assembly elections, the state is divided into 88 electoral districts. Each district is represented by one member who is elected to a four-year term. Members of Parliament are elected by preferential voting, a method of voting that allows voters to rank candidates. See Preferential voting.
The political party or coalition (alliance of political parties) that has a majority in the Legislative Assembly leads the government. One person, normally the leader of the dominant party or coalition, is chosen as the premier.
The Victorian Parliament has power over all matters except those given to the Australian Parliament by the Constitution. Its areas of control include education, health, housing, law enforcement, power supply, public works, roads and transportation, and water supply.
Local government
is the responsibility of Victoria’s municipal districts. The state Parliament determines the organization and powers of municipal councils. Residents of each municipality elect the councilors. The functions of municipal councils include maintenance of some local roads and bridges, drainage, building control, community welfare, waste disposal, and provision and maintenance of local parks and gardens.
History
Aboriginal peoples
occupied the land now called Victoria for at least 35,000 years before Europeans first sighted it. The Aboriginal peoples in Victoria belonged to multiple clans, each with its own language, cultural practices, and territory.
The Aboriginal peoples developed a variety of ways to use and manage the area’s resources. They fished, hunted, and gathered plants. Some groups used fire to clear sections of land in order to encourage the growth of useful plants and to create grasslands that would attract animals to hunt. This technique is called firestick farming.
In the Budj Bim lava flow formations of southeastern Victoria, the Gunditjmara people built channels, dams, and holding ponds to trap and harvest kooyang (short-finned eels). It was one of the world’s oldest aquaculture (fish farming) systems, dating back about 6,600 years. In 2019, the United Nations Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) added the Budj Bim Cultural Landscape to its World Heritage List. The list recognizes places of unique cultural and natural importance.
The first European
to see Victorian soil was Zachary Hicks, a lieutenant aboard the British explorer James Cook‘s ship Endeavour. Cook had sailed from New Zealand to explore the coast of New Holland, as Australia was then called. On April 19, 1770, Hicks sighted land, which Cook named Point Hicks. In late 1797 and early 1798, a British naval surgeon and explorer, George Bass, sailed a whaleboat along the southeastern coast, around what is now Wilsons Promontory to Western Port. From 1798 to 1799, Bass and the British navigator Matthew Flinders circumnavigated (sailed around) Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania). New South Wales governor John Hunter named the strait they discovered after Bass.
While surveying the southern coast of New South Wales in early 1802, the British explorer John Murray found and explored Port Phillip Bay. A few weeks after Murray left, Matthew Flinders, sailing the Investigator from England to New South Wales, reached the bay and explored it. Charles Grimes, surveyor general of New South Wales, discovered the Yarra River in 1803.
The early settlements.
Worried by the French interest in Australia, the British authorities sent Lieutenant Colonel David Collins, along with a party of soldiers and convicts, to establish a settlement on Port Phillip Bay. Collins’s party landed near the present site of Sorrento in October 1803. Water supplies were inadequate, and the Aboriginal peoples seemed to oppose the party’s presence. Collins moved his party to Van Diemen’s Land and founded Hobart Town in early February 1804. At Port Phillip Bay, the convict William Buckley had escaped. Buckley lived with Aboriginal people for 32 years, until he was discovered by colonists in 1835.
A second attempt at establishing a British settlement was made by a party under Captain Samuel Wright. This party landed at Western Port in 1826. The settlement was abandoned after 15 months. Sealers and whalers, many of them escaped convicts with Aboriginal wives, made more successful unofficial settlements along the coast.
Explorers began to probe Victoria from the north. Sir Thomas Brisbane, governor of New South Wales, persuaded the Australian-born explorer Hamilton Hume to lead a party organized by the British-born explorer Captain William Hovell. In 1824 and 1825, Hume and Hovell explored the land between the southern limits of the New South Wales settlement and the southern coast.
In late 1834, Edward Henty established a permanent settlement at Portland Bay. In 1835, John Batman, an Australian farmer seeking land, explored the area near the mouth of the Yarra River. Batman selected the site of what later became Melbourne as a good place for a town. He signed a treaty with several local Aboriginal leaders under which he laid claim to 600,000 acres (243,000 hectares). In return, he agreed to pay the Aboriginal people an annual tribute of blankets, tomahawks, knives, flour, and other goods. Batman left a group behind at Indented Head on Port Phillip Bay and returned to Van Diemen’s Land to announce his purchase and organize settlers.
In August, a group organized by the Australian pioneer John Pascoe Fawkner ignored Batman’s claim and settled at what is now Melbourne. Batman’s group soon discovered them and moved to that location. Fawkner and Batman arrived later in the fall. Batman died not long afterward, but Fawkner lived to see the colony gain self-government.
In 1836, Major Thomas Mitchell, the surveyor general of New South Wales, followed the Lachlan and then the Murrumbidgee rivers down to the Murray River. He traced the Murray to its junction with the Darling River and then explored the southwest part of what is now Victoria. His enthusiastic report on the grazing land there encouraged new settlement in the region.
Also in 1836, the New South Wales government permitted occupation of grazing land for a payment of an annual license fee. A stream of settlers crossed the Murray and established settlements. Many settlers who arrived from overseas also took up land south of the Murray.
Faithfull Party Massacre.
By 1850, farmers and their sheep were scattered through all of the Port Phillip district except for the Mallee desert and the mountains. The spread of European settlement brought conflict with Aboriginal people. Some settlers were killed. The most notorious incident was the Faithfull Party Massacre of 1838. In this incident, a group of men led by George Faithfull were taking sheep to Victoria. An advance party was attacked by Aboriginal people at the site of present-day Benalla. Most of the party were killed. Settlers later took revenge on the local Aboriginal people.
Many other Aboriginal people were killed by colonial settlers. Attempts were made to “Christianize and civilize” the Aboriginal population—that is, convert them to Christianity and a settled agricultural life. A British government plan to set up areas where Aboriginal people would be settled and educated failed and was abandoned in 1849. The government established Aboriginal reserves and mission stations after 1860, but these did little to stop the continued decline of the Aboriginal population.
In 1839, Charles Joseph La Trobe became superintendent of the Port Phillip District. He sought to make the district a separate colony from New South Wales. The British colonial government granted representation in the New South Wales Legislative Council to the Port Phillip district in 1843, but the people of the district were not satisfied. They wanted to separate from New South Wales. The British Parliament granted their wish in the Australian Colonies Government Act of 1850. The colony of Victoria, named after Queen Victoria, was proclaimed on July 1, 1851. La Trobe became the first governor of the new colony.
Gold.
In July 1851, the prospector Louis Michel announced that he had found gold at Andersons Creek, in the hills east of Melbourne, and the prospector James Esmond announced his find near Clunes, northwest of Melbourne. Other discoveries followed at Castlemaine, Ballarat, Buninyong, and Bendigo. Gold fever gripped the local population and soon spread throughout the world. Thousands of people poured through Melbourne on the way to the diggings. The population of Victoria grew from about 77,000 in 1851 to about 540,000 in 1861.
Chinese prospectors were among the first non-British miners to arrive at the gold fields. Although their numbers were small, they were the target of fierce racism. In 1855, Victoria passed legislation prohibiting the entry of Chinese people into the colony, the first legislation of its type passed in the colonies. Anti-Chinese riots occurred on the Buckland field in Victoria in 1857.
In 10 years, miners dug huge amounts of gold out of Victorian soil, a third of the world’s output during that time. Most deposits were alluvial gold, deposits found in and near streams. When these diggings stopped finding deposits, gold seekers began sinking shafts as deep as 130 feet (40 meters) below ground to the beds of ancient streams. Despite these efforts, the output of gold steadily declined.
Eureka Stockade.
The administrators of the gold fields established a special force of police that carried out frequent license inspections. These became known as digger hunts. The diggers bitterly resented paying the license fees, particularly because the fee collectors took no account of the miners’ success or failure. The miners expressed their complaints at mass meetings and demonstrations. The unrest reached a crucial point in 1854 at Ballarat. There, the diggers hoisted their own flag, burned their licenses, and, led by Peter Lalor, built a stockade (blockade) in Eureka. On Dec. 3, 1854, Governor Charles Hotham sent troops to restore order. In the short fight that followed, about 30 miners and 6 soldiers were killed. See Eureka Stockade.
The diggers lost the fight, but popular sympathy was on their side, and they won their point. The government brought 13 of the leaders to trial, but a jury acquitted all except one of them. In 1855, the government abolished the license fee and introduced a miner’s right fee of one pound a year. It also granted voting rights to anyone holding a miner’s right.
Gold made Victoria the wealthiest and most populous of the Australian colonies. By 1891, Melbourne had grown to a wealthy city of about 491,000 people.
In the 1890’s, however, a strike of maritime workers spread from Victoria across the continent. The land boom collapsed, and speculators went bankrupt. Banks closed their doors. There was widespread unemployment. In the years between 1891 and 1905, more people left the state than entered it. Melbourne and Victoria lost their place as Australia’s top city and state to Sydney and New South Wales.
Federation.
Victorians strongly supported the public campaigns and referenda (public votes) that led to the formation of the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901. Under the federal agreement, Melbourne became the federal capital until a site was selected in New South Wales. The Australian Parliament met in Melbourne until it moved to Canberra in 1927.
World War I
(1914-1918) stimulated industrial development in Victoria, largely in the area of light industry. After the war, the car industry began operations in 1925 and 1926 in Geelong.
The Great Depression
severely slowed economic development from 1929 to 1933. At the height of the Depression, more than a third of all Victorian workers were out of work. Recovery was not complete until World War II (1939-1945), which stimulated the growth of Victorian industry.
Immigration trends.
As in the rest of Australia, the composition of Victoria’s population changed due to a wave of immigration from Europe after World War II. Large Italian and Greek communities, in particular, established themselves in Melbourne and some rural areas. Beginning in the late 1970’s, a large number of Vietnamese refugees came to Victoria.
The 1956 Summer Olympic Games
were held in Melbourne, marking the first Olympics held in the Southern Hemisphere. In the weeks preceding the Melbourne games, Israel invaded Egypt and Soviet troops invaded Hungary. These actions led to the first boycotts of the modern Olympics. Egypt, Iraq, and Lebanon withdrew to protest the Israeli take-over of the Suez Canal. The Netherlands and Spain boycotted to protest the Soviet invasion. However, despite violent clashes in a water polo match between the Soviet Union and Hungary, the games went smoothly. Australian pride was boosted by the Australian swimmer Murray Rose and the Australian track star Betty Cuthbert, who won three gold medals each.
Victoria’s politics after World War II
were dominated by Sir Henry Bolte and his conservative Liberal Party. Bolte held the office of premier from 1955 to 1972. Bolte’s most controversial decision was to enforce the hanging in 1967 of Ronald Ryan, a prison inmate found guilty of killing a guard during an escape. Ryan was the last man executed in Australia.
After Bolte retired, the Liberals stayed in office until John Cain led the Australian Labor Party (ALP) to victory in the 1982 election and served for three terms. Cain’s administration increased government aid for housing and other social programs. Cain’s successor as Labor premier, Joan Kirner, served as the state’s first female premier from 1990 to 1992.
The Labor era suffered a series of financial crises in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. The government was forced to sell Victoria’s State Bank, which was on the verge of collapse, to the federal Commonwealth Bank. In the 1992 election, the Liberals, allied with the National Party, returned to power under the leadership of Jeff Kennett. Kennett’s government supported privatization—that is, selling government-owned industries to private investors—and a reduction of government control in the economic sector. Over two terms, Kennett sold publicly owned electric, gas, transportation, and gambling companies to the private sector. Private investors built and operated three new jails.
Recent developments.
In the 1999 election, Kennett was voted out of office, and the Labor Party’s Steve Bracks came to power. Bracks maintained the Liberal privatization deals but halted the sale of public assets and reversed some of the cuts to teacher, nurse, and police staffs made by Kennett. The Bracks government was reelected in a landslide victory in 2002. Bracks stepped down in 2007 and was replaced by his treasurer, John Brumby. A coalition of the Liberal and National parties then governed, led by Ted Baillieu from 2010 to 2013 and by Denis Napthine from 2013 to 2014.
In February 2009, the most deadly bushfires in Australian history devastated southern Victoria, leaving 173 people dead. An intense drought, record-high temperatures, and strong winds contributed to extremely dangerous conditions, stoking hundreds of bushfires. The fires reached their height on Saturday, February 9, when several towns were completely destroyed. The disaster became known as Black Saturday. Officials suspected that arson had caused some of the fires, which destroyed thousands of homes and forced the evacuation of thousands of people. In early 2011, heavy rains caused major flooding in Victoria.
In 2014, the Labor Party returned to power under the leadership of Daniel Andrews. In 2018, Andrews was returned to office for a second term. His government supported infrastructure projects to improve road and rail transportation. These projects include the Metro Tunnel, a new metropolitan railway line that includes a 6-mile (9-kilometer) tunnel beneath Melbourne’s central business district and is scheduled for completion in the mid-2020’s.
In late 2019, intense drought conditions, combined with high temperatures, led to an outbreak of severe bushfires across Australia. Victoria was particularly hard hit. Dozens of fires raged, continuing into early 2020. The fires burned more than 3.7 million acres (1.5 million hectares) of land in Victoria. They destroyed many buildings and caused the deaths of several people in the state. 
In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic (worldwide epidemic) spread to Australia. Australian governments took action to limit the spread of the disease and to ease the financial hardships it caused. Such measures were strongest in highly populated metropolitan areas, where the disease could spread most easily. During 2020 and 2021, Melbourne experienced six lockdown periods totaling 262 days, one of the longest periods of restriction in the world. The lockdown policy eased in late October 2021, as the vaccination rate in the state rose above 70 percent.
In 2022, Andrews was reelected for a third term as premier. In 2023, he resigned from politics. He was succeeded as premier and Labor Party leader by Jacinta Allan, who had been serving as the party’s deputy leader.
