The Capital of Australia is Canberra, located in the Australian Capital Territory, which is surrounded by New South Wales. The city is 150 kilometres inland and 571 metres above the Pacific Ocean, 281 kilometres from Sydney and 660 kilometres from Melbourne.

History

Located on the ancient lands of the Indigenous Ngunnawal people, Canberra’s name, the capital of Australia is thought to mean ‘meeting place’, derived from the Aboriginal word Kamberra. European settlers first came in the 1830s, and the area was chosen for the federal capital of Australia in 1908. Canberra’s special contrast of nature and urban living was planned in 1912 by master designer, Walter Burley Griffin, a Chicago architect who won an international competition to design the Capital of Australia. The provisional Parliament House was opened in 1927 in what was then a treeless paddock. For more information on Canberra’s history, visit www.nationalcapital.gov.au.