Landscape

Climate

Victoria has a wide range of climate types across its small geographical area. The northwest has a semi-arid temperate climate with hot summers, while the coastal region has a wetter, temperate climate with mild winters. The Great Dividing Range in the centre of the state has a cooler, mountain climate, with the snow-covered Victorian Alps in the east the coldest part.

Melbourne

Consultant: Nicholas Harris

History of Victoria

40,000 years ago
Aboriginal Australians inhabit Victoria, living a semi-nomadic existence of eel fishing, hunting and gathering

before 12,000 years ago
Sea levels are low enough for an area of dry land, called the Bassian plain, to exist between southern Victoria and what is now the island of Tasmania. This "land bridge" allows Aboriginal Australians to cross to Tasmania

1770
British explorer James Cook makes the first recorded sighting of the Victorian coast at Point Hicks

1788
After the founding of the colony of New South Wales, Australia is divided into an eastern half named New South Wales (which includes the area of what is now Victoria) and a western half named New Holland

1798–1802
Explorers George Bass, James Grant, John Murray and Matthew Flinders chart Victorian waters and explore its bays

1803
The first British settlement in the area later known as Victoria, a penal settlement, is founded by Lieutenant-Governor David Collins at Sullivan Bay (near present-day Sorrento) on Port Phillip Bay. It is established out of concerns that the French might establish their own settlement in the region and so challenge British claims to the continent

early 1800s
On first contact with Europeans, there are three main Aboriginal groups living in Victoria: the Kurnai of Gippsland, the Yorta Yorta of the eastern Murray and the Kulin of the Central Divide

1834
In defiance of a British government edict forbidding settlement in the area, the family of Edward Henty, who had previously settled in Tasmania (then called Van Diemen's Land), establishes a farming settlement in Portland Bay

1835
John Batman crosses from Van Diemen's Land and sets up a base in Indented Head, Port Phillip. John Pascoe Fawkner also establishes a colony on the banks of the Yarra River. Batman presents local Aboriginal people with a treaty, and later claims he has been granted land in exchange for "payment" of goods and rations. Formed from the colonies of Batman and Fawkner, the town of Melbourne is officially recognized as a settlement in 1837

1830s–40s
As more and more settlers arrive from Britain and other parts of Australia and take over grazing land, wars between the settlers and Aboriginal peoples rage, intensified by the use of the Native Police Force. The numbers of Aboriginal people drop from an estimated 100,000 to 3500 by 1850 as a result of both the spread of European diseases and massacres carried out by white settlers

1843
Border between District of Port Phillip (as Victoria is then called) and the rest of the Colony of New South Wales is established. It runs from Cape Howe, to the nearest source of the Murray River, and then along the course of the Murray to the border with South Australia

1851
The independence of the Colony of Victoria from New South Wales is proclaimed. It is named in honour of Queen Victoria. Days later, gold is discovered near Ballarat (and later at Bendigo and many other sites across Victoria) triggering a major gold rush and a population increase from 76,000 to 540,000 (nearly half the Australia total) by 1860. The immigrant population is swollen by arrivals from Ireland and China

1854
An armed rebellion against the government of Victoria is made by miners protesting against taxes imposed on them. Known as the "Eureka Stockade", it is crushed by British troops, but the incident persuades the colonial authorities to reduce the hated mining licence fees and extend the electoral franchise (those permitted to vote in elections)

1855
British Parliament passes Colony of Victoria Act, establishing a government in Victoria

1891
Financial crash, leading to failure of several banks in Victoria and severe economic depression

1901
Victoria becomes a state in the Commonwealth of Australia. While the new capital, Canberra, is being built, Melbourne serves as the country's first federal capital until 1927

1956
Melbourne becomes the first city in the Southern Hemisphere to host the Olympic Games