Melbourne

Melbourne is a big city in Australia. It is next to a wide bay.

A river called the Yarra flows through it. Tall towers stand near green parks.

Melbourne is the capital of Victoria, a state in southeastern Australia. It lies on the Yarra River, close to where the river flows into Port Phillip Bay. The city stands on the land of the Wurundjeri people.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics estimated that 5,435,590 people lived in Greater Melbourne on 30 June 2025. Only Greater Sydney has more people, and Melbourne grew faster in numbers than any other Australian capital that year, by 105,030 people.

Melbourne is the capital of Victoria and the center of Greater Melbourne, which the Australian Bureau of Statistics counts as one capital-city area. Its estimated resident population was 5,435,590 on 30 June 2025, second to Greater Sydney's 5,638,830.

In 2024–25 Greater Melbourne added 105,030 people (2.0%), the largest increase of any capital city, with the highest natural increase and the largest net overseas migration of the capitals, while more people moved away to other parts of Australia than arrived. Much of the growth was on the outer edges: Rockbank–Mount Cottrell and Fraser Rise–Plumpton in the outer west and Mickleham–Yuroke in the outer north each grew by more than 4,000 people.

Melbourne has a huge old hall for big shows. It stands in a garden.

The city also has a giant sports ground where people watch cricket and football.

The Royal Exhibition Building and the Carlton Gardens around it were made for two great international exhibitions, in 1880 and 1888. The architect Joseph Reed designed both, mixing styles from Byzantine to Italian Renaissance. Today the hall and gardens are a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and big exhibitions are held there again.

The Melbourne Cricket Ground, or MCG, has been the home of the Melbourne Cricket Club since 1853. The first Test cricket match was played there, Australian rules football grew up there, and in 1956 it was the main stadium of the Olympic Games.

UNESCO describes the Royal Exhibition Building and Carlton Gardens as typical of the international exhibition movement, which staged more than 50 exhibitions between 1851 and 1915 in cities such as Paris, New York, Vienna and Calcutta. Joseph Reed's building, of brick, timber, steel and slate, combines Byzantine, Romanesque, Lombardic and Italian Renaissance elements; the property keeps the boundaries set out in 1879, and the 1994 restoration returned the interior colors to the documented scheme of 1901, while parts of the 1880 murals survive.

The Melbourne Cricket Club moved to the MCG site, its third base, in 1853, and the first cricket match there, between New South Wales and Victoria, was played in 1862. The Encyclopedia of Melbourne notes that the ground is best known as the setting of the first Test cricket match and the place where Australian rules football was born and raised; in 1956 it was the main stadium of the Olympic Games.

Melbourne has lots and lots of trams. They roll along tracks in the streets.

Trains run under the city center, too.

Trams are a symbol of Melbourne. UrbanRail.net says its tram network, about 250 kilometers of double-track routes, is the largest in the world. Long ago, Melbourne had cable trams pulled along by moving cables under the street; the last ones ran in October 1940, and electric trams took over.

Suburban trains run around a loop under the city center, finished in 1984 with three underground stations. On 30 November 2025 a new cross-city railway, the Metro Tunnel, opened to take pressure off the busy loop.

The Encyclopedia of Melbourne describes the city's former cable tram system as one of the most extensive built anywhere; it saw no new extensions after 1891, and the last cable trams ran from Bourke Street in October 1940 as the electric network replaced them. Melbourne's first electric street tramway ran between Box Hill and Doncaster from 1889 to 1896. Today UrbanRail.net calls the network of about 250 km of double-track routes the world's largest.

Melbourne's suburban railway is not a classic metro: frequent suburban trains run around a four-track underground City Loop, completed in 1984 with Parliament, Melbourne Central and Flagstaff stations. Since 2009 the network has been operated by Hong Kong's MTR as "Metro." The 9 km Metro Tunnel, from South Kensington to Hawksburn, opened on 30 November 2025 with limited service until 1 February 2026, to relieve the congested loop.

People in Melbourne love sport. Big crowds watch cricket, and Australian rules football in winter.

The city has gardens, theaters and lots of places to play.

Sport is a big part of life in Melbourne. At the MCG, crowds watch cricket, and in winter Australian rules football, often called "Aussie Rules," takes over the ground. In 1956 Melbourne hosted the Olympic Games.

The gold rush also helped Melbourne's theaters flourish: many gold-seekers were young men away from home for the first time, and two new theaters opened in 1855. Today families can explore the Carlton Gardens around the Royal Exhibition Building, part of a World Heritage Site.

At the MCG, Australian rules football dominates the winter and cricket is the other main attraction; many other sports have been played there too, from baseball and soccer to athletics, and it was the main stadium of the 1956 Olympic Games. The 2006 Commonwealth Games were the target date for a major redevelopment of its northern side, begun in 2001.

The Encyclopedia of Melbourne records that gold-rush immigrants, many of them young men away from home for the first time, made Melbourne's theater flourish: George Coppin's Olympic Theatre and Theatre Royal both opened in 1855. Around the Royal Exhibition Building, the Carlton Gardens form part of the World Heritage property, which UNESCO notes is once again used for large exhibitions.