Canberra, Australia

Canberra is the capital of Australia and the Australian Capital Territory (ACT). Medium-sized and modern, with a strong government-industry-based economy, Canberra was a completely planned city. It was created after the formation of the ACT in 1908 to house the nation's government, and the city's entire layout was designed by architects.

Landscape

Canberra occupies 805.6 square kilometers (311 square miles) of land in the ACT's northeastern region, 660 kilometers (410 miles) northeast of Melbourne, and 281 kilometers (175 miles) southwest of Sydney. The ACT has an area of 2,358 square kilometers (910 square miles) and is located near the southeastern coast of Australia, entirely enclosed by New South Wales.

Canberra sits in the former flood plain of the Molonglo River, about 150 kilometers (93 miles) from the coast. It is hilly, ranging in altitude from 550 meters (1,804 feet) to 888 meters (2,913 feet) at Mount Majura, its highest point. Surrounding the city are bush, swampland, and eucalyptus groves. Further to the west is the Brindabella mountain range. Canberra has a continental climate. Australia's location in the southern hemisphere means that summer comes between November and January, and winter arrives in June and lasts through August.

There are seven districts in Canberra: North Canberra, South Canberra, Woden Valley, Belconnen, Weston Creek, Tuggeranong, and Gungahlin. Each district has a town center with shops, businesses, and schools, surrounded by suburbs. The suburbs of Mitchell in North Canberra, Fyshwick in South Canberra, and Hume in Tuggeranong are where most of Canberra's light manufacturing takes place.

Canberra's city center and commercial hub is officially called City, though it is also commonly referred to as City Centre, Civic, Civic Centre, or Canberra City. It exists independently of any district and contains government and office buildings, stores, restaurants, clubs, and theaters. City Hill in City is the northern apex of Parliamentary Triangle, a triangular ceremonial precinct containing Canberra's most important buildings. Parliamentary Triangle is bounded by three streets: Commonwealth Avenue, which runs north and south; King's Avenue, which runs northeast and southwest; and Constitution Avenue, which runs northwest to southeast. The other apexes of the Triangle are Capital Hill and the Defence Headquarters in Russell.

Near City and the Parliamentary Triangle is Lake Burley Griffin, an artificial lake created from the Molonglo River, which bisected Canberra before it was dammed off. Lake Burley Griffin is 9 kilometers (5.6 miles) long and covers an area of 664 hectares (1641 acres). Northwest of Lake Burley Griffin is Black Mountain, an 812-meter (2,664-foot) peak. East of the lake are the Jerrabomberra Wetlands. Nature reserves are scattered throughout the city.

People

The population of the Australian Capital Territory was estimated to be 472,000 in 2023. Most resident immigrants to Canberra (2021 estimate) were born in England (3.5 percent of the total population), China (3.2 percent), India (2.5 percent), New Zealand (1.3 percent), or the United States (1.1 percent).

Ethnic groups are evenly dispersed throughout Canberra. Restaurants that serve ethnic cuisine can be found in every district, with large concentrations in City and North Canberra. Asian markets and Vietnamese, Chinese, and Malaysian restaurants line Woolley Street in Dickson, a suburb of North Canberra, earning the street the nickname "Chinatown." Canberra embraces its diverse population by hosting a variety of multicultural festivals and events.

There is a very small Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community in Canberra. In 2021, 2,050 residents of Canberra identified as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Canberrans experience more hardships than white Canberrans. They have lower literacy rates, employment rates, and income, as well as poorer housing and higher rates of children living in single-parent households.

English is the primary spoken language in Canberra. According to the 2021 census, 25.1 percent of Canberrans spoke a language other than English at home. Mandarin was the most common secondary language (3.8 percent of the total population), followed by Nepali (1 percent).

In 2021, 39.7 percent of the population reported having no religious affiliation. Catholicism was the most common religious affiliation in Canberra, practiced by 16.2 percent of the population. Of the rest, 7.6 percent were Anglican, 3.2 percent were Hindu, and 6.5 percent did not state an affiliation.

Canberra's most famous resident was Sir Robert Gordon Menzies, Australia's longest-serving prime minister, who was in office from 1939 to 1941 and 1949 to 1966. He led Australia into defensive alliances with New Zealand and the United States (ANZUS) and the East Asia Treaty Organization. He also encouraged industrial development and European immigration.

Economy

Canberra had an estimated unemployment rate of 5.11 percent in 2021.

In 2021, about 18.9 percent of Canberra's workforce was employed in the central government administration sector. The second-largest industrial sector was defense at 7.7 percent, followed by higher education at 4.2 percent.

The main agricultural activity in Canberra is the raising of sheep and cattle. Clearing of native forests was stopped in the mid-1970s. Now, 10 percent of the land area is set aside for plantation forest, and each year, 500 to 1,000 hectares (1,235 to 2,471 acres) of pine forest are planted to replace what is harvested.

Other major industries include retail trade (11 percent of the workforce in 2016), accommodation and food services (10.5 percent), construction (8.3 percent), and education and training (7.9 percent). Canberra has an insignificant manufacturing industry, employing only 5.5 percent of the workforce, and export is limited primarily to wholesale retail goods.

Canberra's technology sector is ripe for growth. Canberra has excellent information technology resources, including the most advanced fiber-optic cable network in Australia. It provides the most research and development in Australia and is the site of the country's largest research and development organization, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO).

Landmarks

Many of Canberra's famous landmarks are located within Parliamentary Triangle. These include the Parliament House, the Old Parliament House, the National Gallery of Australia, the National Library of Australia, Lake Burley Griffin, and the Captain James Cook Memorial.

The Parliament House is considered a billion-dollar masterpiece of modern architecture. Situated partially underneath Capital Hill, it was completed in 1988 and replaced the Old Parliament House. Around 1.2 million tourists visit its chambers and public art galleries every year.

The Old Parliament House, the building that served as the seat of Parliament from 1927 to 1988, is a few blocks northeast of Parliament House and accommodates the National Portrait Gallery. Near the Old Parliament House are the National Gallery of Australia and the National Library of Australia. The National Gallery has one of the largest assortments of Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander, and Australian art in the country. The National Library is Australia's largest reference library.

The portion of Lake Burley Griffin within Parliamentary Triangle contains the Captain James Cook Memorial, a fountain that sprays a 149-meter (490-foot) jet of water, one of the tallest in the world. Lake Burley Griffin, both inside and outside Parliament Triangle, is a popular destination for those who like water sports. Surrounding the lake are parks with trails for hiking and bicycling.

Outside Parliament Triangle is the Australian War Memorial, a museum that honors Australian soldiers; the National Museum of Australia, a museum of Australian natural and cultural history; the Australian National Botanic Gardens; and the National Zoo and Aquarium.

An interactive exhibition at the Institute of Sports allows visitors to measure their own sports fitness and abilities. Telstra Tower, the futuristic communications structure on Black Mountain, provides a scenic overview of the city. The CSIRO on Black Mountain offers the Australian National Insect Collection (ANIC), the Australian National Herbarium, and the interactive CSIRO Discovery Centre.

Other landmarks include the Canberra Deep Space Communications Complex, Mount Stromlo Observatory, the fifty-three-bell National Carillon, and the historic properties of Lanyon Homestead and Blundell's Cottage.

History

Archaeological evidence reveals that the Ngunnawal people have inhabited the Canberra region for the past twenty thousand years. The first Europeans to arrive were explorers Joseph Wild, James Vaughan, and Charles Throsby Smith in 1820, who named the region Limestone Plains. A few years later, European settler Joshua John Moore purchased the first land grant in Limestone Plains and named it Canberry after the Ngunnawal word for the area, Kamberra, or "meeting place." The Ngunnawal people soon began dying in large numbers from hunger and European diseases. To survive, many found it necessary to work on the sheep stations developed by the Europeans.

By the late nineteenth century, the Canberra region was dotted with farms and grazing land. A small community with a school and a church had arisen, and infrastructure between the Canberra region and Sydney had greatly improved. Very few, if any, full-blooded Ngunnawal people resided in the area by this time, having either been killed by diseases brought by the settlers, been forced to leave after the disruption of their hunting patterns by the settlers, or married into settler families.

Australia became a federation in 1901, uniting its six previously independent colonies. In 1908, 2,358 square kilometers (910 square miles) of grazing land in the Yass-Canberra region of New South Wales was designated Federal Capital Territory. It was there that the national capital of the new federation would be built.

To placate Sydney and Melbourne, each of which had campaigned bitterly to be the national capital, the Commonwealth of Australia stipulated that the Federal Capital Territory (renamed the ACT in 1938) would not be located less than one hundred miles from Sydney and that Melbourne would be the temporary seat of government until completion of the national capital city. New South Wales ceded its land in 1910, and the Federal Capital Territory was formally established in 1911.

That year, American architect Walter Burley Griffin won a competition held by the Commonwealth to find a designer for its national capital city. His proposal involved unifying infrastructure with natural landscape. Construction began on the city, which was officially named Canberra, in 1913.

Construction progressed very slowly as the result of numerous setbacks, including World War I. Government operations were finally transferred to Canberra in 1927, even though the city was barely inhabited. Canberra experienced so little growth in the following decades that by 1947 it only had fifteen thousand residents. The solution was the National Capital Development Commission (NCDC), an agency established in 1958 to plan citywide improvements.

The NCDC completed its first major projects, damming the Molonglo River to form Lake Burley Griffin in the city center and building two bridges that crossed it, in the early 1960s. Subsequent projects were the ANZAC Parade and the Royal Australian Mint, opened in 1965; the National Library, opened in 1968; and the Australian National Botanic Gardens and the Captain Cook memorial jet, opened in 1970. The NCDC also built offices, courts, government administration buildings, stores, banks, and theaters.

As more government buildings were added, more civil service employees and their families relocated to Canberra. By 1967, the Canberra population had increased to one hundred thousand. To accommodate it, satellite towns such as Woden, Belconnen, Tuggeranong, and Gungahlin were created around the city center instead of letting overflow sprawl naturally.

The NCDC was replaced by the National Capital Planning Authority in 1989, around the same time that the ACT was granted its own legislative assembly and became self-governing.

In 2003, bushfires broke out in parts of Canberra, killing four people, injuring 435, and destroying the major research telescopes and the director's residence at Mount Stromlo Observatory. The observatory was rebuilt and reopened to the public with the burned telescopes branded as monuments by 2014. The same year, Canberra celebrated its one hundredth anniversary with the unveiling of the Canberra Centenary Column, a monument that contains a time capsule filled with one hundred objects.

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