Canberra

Canberra is the capital city of the Australian Capital Territory. It is located 280 km south-west of Sydney and 660 km north-east of Melbourne. The word Canberra is popularly claimed to derive from the word Kambera or Canberry, which is claimed to mean’meeting place’ in Ngunnawal, one of the Indigenous languages spoken in the district by Aboriginal Australians. An alternative definition has been claimed by numerous local commentators over the years, whereby Canberra or Nganbra means ‘woman’s breasts’ and is the indigenous name for the two mountains, Black Mountain and Mount Ainslie.

About Canberra in brief

Canberra is the capital city of the Australian Capital Territory. It is located 280 km south-west of Sydney and 660 km north-east of Melbourne. As at June 2019 the population of Canberra was 426,704, having grown by 1.5% over the preceding 12 months. Canberra is home to many important institutions of the federal government, national monuments and museums. It also hosts the majority of foreign embassies in Australia as well as regional headquarters of many international organisations, not-for-profit groups, lobbying groups and professional associations. The word Canberra is popularly claimed to derive from the word Kambera or Canberry, which is claimed to mean’meeting place’ in Ngunnawal, one of the Indigenous languages spoken in the district by Aboriginal Australians. An alternative definition has been claimed by numerous local commentators over the years, whereby Canberra or Nganbra means ‘woman’s breasts’ and is the indigenous name for the two mountains, Black Mountain and Mount Ainslie, which lie almost opposite each other. As the city has a high proportion of public servants, the Commonwealth Government contributes the largest percentage of gross territory product. Compared to the national averages, the unemployment rate is lower and the average income higher; tertiary education levels are higher, while the population is younger. The federal government maintains authority over the Territory and may overturn local laws. It still maintains control over the area known as the Parliamentary Triangle through the National Capital Authority through the ACT Legislative Assembly. The majority of the Territory’s population reside in Canberra though and the city is therefore the primary focus of the ACT Government.

The city is unusual among Australian cities, being an entirely planned city outside of any state, similar to Washington, D. C. in the United States or Brasília in Brazil,  like Washington, D.C. and Brasília in Brazil. The name Canberra was reported to be an interpretation of the word nganbira, meaning ‘nollow between a woman’s breasts’, and referring to the floodplain between Mount Ainslie and Black Mountain. An 1830 map of the region does mark the region as ‘Nganbra’ and ‘Black Mountain’ by Major Sullivans. The first European settlers in the region, Joshua Moore, noted that the first settler in the Federal Territory of New South Wales, John Sullivan Sullivan, first recorded the name in his Notes on the Native Flora and Flora of the Flora, Part X, in 1919. In the 1860s, the name was reported as ‘Canberry’ by Queanbeyan newspaper owner John Gale. In 1913, a blueprint by American architects Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin was selected and construction commenced in 1913. The plan featured geometric motifs such as circles, hexagons and triangles, and was centred on axes aligned with significant topographical landmarks in the Australian capital Territory. Canberra does not have a local council or city government like other Australian cities. It is the seat of the government of Australia and the official residence of the monarch’s representative the Governor-General, the High Court and numerous government departments and agencies.

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