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Melbourne, Australia's second largest city, with
a population of 3,300,000 is also capital city of
the state of Victoria. Located in the south eastern
area of Australia, Melbourne is built along the
Yarra River. Melbourne is the southernmost city in
the world to have a population of over one million
people.
Melbourne is located in the south-eastern corner of
mainland Australia, and is the southernmost mainland
capital city. Geologically it is built on the
confluence of Quaternary lava flows to the west,
Silurian mudstones to the east and Holocene sand
accumulation to the southeast along Port Phillip,
its suburbs sprawling to the east, following the
Yarra River out to the Yarra and Dandenong Ranges,
south-east to the mouth of the bay, and following
the Maribyrnong River and its tributaries west and
north to flat farming country. The central business
district (the original city) is laid out in the
famous mile-by-half-a-mile Hoddle Grid, its southern
edge fronting on to the Yarra.
Melbourne is often the starting point for travellers
exploring the Dandenong Ranges, or the Great Ocean
Road. Also close to Melbourne is Phillip Island,
with its nightly display of fairy penguins.
Melbourne is home to Australia's three largest
corporations, Telstra, BHP Billiton and the National
Australia Bank. It is also home to the Business
Council of Australia, the Australian Council of
Trade Unions and the majority of companies listed on
the Australian Stock Exchange. Melbourne is a large
commercial and industrial centre. Many of
Australia's largest companies have their
headquarters there, and many multinational
corporations (approximately one-third of the 100
largest multinationals operating in Australia as of
2002), have their main Australian office there. The
peak body representing workers in Australia, the
Australian Council of Trade Unions, is also
headquartered in Melbourne. Melbourne is home to
Australia's largest seaport and much of Australia's
automotive industry (including the engine
manufacturing facility of Holden and the Ford and
Toyota manufacturing facilities), in addition to
many other manufacturing industries.
Melbourne, often referred to as the sporting capital
of Australia, hosts many major Australian sporting
events including: the Melbourne Spring Racing
Carnival (including the 'race that stops the
nation', the Melbourne Cup), the Australian Formula
One Grand Prix, the Australian Tennis Open and the
AFL Grand Final. Melbourne hosted the first Olympic
Games in the southern hemisphere in 1956, as well as
the 2006 Commonwealth Games.
Melbourne has one of the highest numbers of
international students studying in its universities,
after London, New York City, and Paris.
Melbourne is typical of Australian capital cities in
that it was built with the underlying notion of a
quarter acre home and garden for every family, often
referred to locally as the Australian Dream. As
such, much of Metropolitan Melbourne is
characterised by low density sprawl.
Furthermore, the provision of an extensive railway
and tram service in the earlier years of development
encouraged this low density development to occur in
radial lines following the transport corridors. The
result is today's Melbourne - one of the world's
largest cities in terms of physical size or urban
footprint. The Victorian Government's planning
blueprint Melbourne 2030 aims to limit further
sprawl in the future.
Melbourne is often referred to as Australia's garden
city, and the state of Victoria is officially known
as the garden state. There is an abundance of parks
and gardens close to the CBD with a variety of
common and rare plant species amid landscaped
vistas, pedestrian pathways, and tree lined avenues.
There are also many parks in the surrounding suburbs
of Melbourne, such as in the cities of Stonnington
and Booroondara, south east of the CBD.
Melbourne is a sprawling metropolis. Melbourne's
population density declined following World War II,
with the private motor car and the lure of house and
land extending the suburbs, mainly to the east.
After much discussion (both at general public and
planning levels) in the 1980s the decline has
actually been reversed since the early 1990s (when
hit by a property market collapse that was
facilitated by a recession), and the city has seen
increased density in the inner and western suburbs.
Since the late 1990's there has been a substantial
rise in high rise apartment construction within 2 km
radius of the central business district. The
Victorian government's Melbourne 2030 policy has
introduced an artificial urban growth boundary to
further curtail the urban sprawl.
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