1.
Victoria (Australia)
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Victoria is a state in southeast Australia. Victoria is Australias most densely populated state and its second-most populous state overall, most of its population is concentrated in the area surrounding Port Phillip Bay, which includes the metropolitan area of its state capital and largest city, Melbourne, Australias second-largest city. Prior to British European settlement, the area now constituting Victoria was inhabited by a number of Aboriginal peoples. With Great Britain having claimed the entire Australian continent east of the 135th meridian east in 1788, Victoria was included in the wider colony of New South Wales. The first settlement in the area occurred in 1803 at Sullivan Bay, and much of what is now Victoria was included in the Port Phillip District in 1836, Victoria was officially created as a separate colony in 1851, and achieved self-government in 1855. Politically, Victoria has 37 seats in the Australian House of Representatives and 12 seats in the Australian Senate, at state level, the Parliament of Victoria consists of the Legislative Assembly and the Legislative Council. Victoria is currently governed by the Labor Party, with Daniel Andrews the current Premier, the personal representative of the Queen of Australia in the state is the Governor of Victoria, currently Linda Dessau. Local government is concentrated in 79 municipal districts, including 33 cities, although a number of unincorporated areas still exist, Victorias total gross state product is ranked second in Australia, although Victoria is ranked fourth in terms of GSP per capita because of its limited mining activity. Culturally, Melbourne is home to a number of museums, art galleries and theatres and is described as the sporting capital of Australia. The Melbourne Cricket Ground is the largest stadium in Australia, and the host of the 1956 Summer Olympics, Victoria has eight public universities, with the oldest, the University of Melbourne, having been founded in 1853. Victoria, like Queensland, was named after Queen Victoria, who had been on the British throne for 14 years when the colony was established in 1851. The first British settlement in the later known as Victoria was established in October 1803 under Lieutenant-Governor David Collins at Sullivan Bay on Port Phillip. In the year 1826 Colonel Stewart, Captain S. Wright, fly and the brigs Dragon and Amity, took a number of convicts and a small force composed of detachments of the 3rd and 93rd regiments. Victorias next settlement was at Portland, on the south west coast of what is now Victoria, edward Henty settled Portland Bay in 1834. Melbourne was founded in 1835 by John Batman, who set up a base in Indented Head, from settlement the region around Melbourne was known as the Port Phillip District, a separately administered part of New South Wales. Shortly after the now known as Geelong was surveyed by Assistant Surveyor W. H. Smythe. And in 1838 Geelong was officially declared a town, despite earlier white settlements dating back to 1826, days later, still in 1851 gold was discovered near Ballarat, and subsequently at Bendigo. Later discoveries occurred at sites across Victoria
2.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
3.
Census in Australia
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The census in Australia, or officially, the Census of Population and Housing, is a descriptive count of population of Australia on one night, and of their dwellings, generally held quinquennially. Participation in the census is compulsory, though answering some questions is optional, the count is taken every five years and is managed by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The first Australian census was held in 1911, on the night of 2 April, in 1961 the five-year period was introduced. Censuses are held on the second Tuesday of August, the most recent was held on 9 August 2016. The cost of the 2011 census was $440 million, a separate census of Norfolk Island has been conducted by the Norfolk Island Government every five years since 1981, and occurs on the same day as the Australian census. The census examines data such as age, gender, incomes, occupations, dwelling types and occupancy, transportation modes, ancestry, languages spoken, the Census and Statistics Act 1905 led to the 1906 establishment of the Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics. The Bureau was renamed the Australian Bureau of Statistics in 1975, the census is collected and published against geographic areas defined by the Australian Standard Geographical Classification. The ASGC provides a set of classifications for the dissemination of all ABS statistics. In 2007 the ABS published a set of spatial units called mesh blocks. The primary aim of mesh blocks is to provide a block for constructing alternative. Only data on persons and total dwellings is released at the mesh block level. Mesh blocks will form the basis of a new statistical geography, the traditional concept of a Collection District is that it was the area that one census collector can cover in about a ten-day period. In the 2001 census, collectors may be allocated more than one urban district because of their size. In urban areas collection districts average about 220 dwellings, in rural areas the number of dwellings per collection district reduces as population densities decrease. For the 2001 census there were 37,209 collection districts and 1,353 Statistical Local Areas defined throughout Australia, the Census and Statistics Act 1905 and Privacy Act 1988 guarantee that no personally-identifiable information is released from the ABS to other government organisations, or the public. However the ABS makes confidential census data available to researchers, who must make various legal commitments before being given access, in the 1970s there was public debate about privacy and the census. In 1979 the Law Reform Commission reported on Privacy and the Census, one of the key elements under question was the inclusion of names. It was found that excluding names reduced the accuracy of the data, individuals were likely to leave questions blank
4.
Postcodes in Australia
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Postcodes are used in Australia to more efficiently sort and route mail within the postal system. All postcodes in Australia have four digits and are placed at the end of the Australian address, Australian postcodes are managed by Australia Post. Postcodes are published in booklets available from post offices or online from the Australia Post website, Australian envelopes and postcards often have four square boxes printed in orange at the bottom right for the postcode. These are used when addressing mail by hand, use of the Australian postcode system commenced in 1967, implemented by the Postmaster-Generals Department, now called Australia Post. It replaced earlier postal sorting systems, such as Melbournes letter and number codes, if addressing a letter from outside Australia, the postcode is recorded before Australia. They are often linked with one area, due to post code rationalization, But are now sometimes they can be quite complex, especially in country areas. The south-western Victoria 3221 postcode of the Geelong Mail Centre also includes twenty places around Geelong with very few people and this means that mail for these places is not fully sorted until it gets to Geelong. Some postcodes cover large populations, while other postcodes have much smaller populations, Australian postcodes range from 0200 for the Australian National University to 9944 for Cannonvale, Queensland. Some towns and suburbs have two postcodes — one for deliveries and one for post office boxes. g. The Royal Brisbane and Womens Hospital has the postcode 4029, the Australian National University had the postcode 0200, more postcode ranges were made available for LVRs in the 1990s. Australia Post has been progressively discontinuing the LVR programme since 2006, Australian National Universitys postcode 0200 was the last LVR to be closed in September 2014. For example, postcode 2620 covers both a locality in NSW as well as a locality in the ACT, and postcode 0872 covers a number of localities across WA, SA, NT and QLD. Jervis Bay Territory, once an exclave of the ACT but now a territory, is geographically located on the coast of NSW. It is just south of the towns of Vincentia and Huskisson, Mail to the Jervis Bay Territory is still addressed to the ACT. The numbers used to show the state on each radio callsign in Australia are the number as the first number for postcodes in that state, e. g. 2xx in New South Wales, 3xx in Victoria. Radio callsigns pre-date postcodes in Australia by more than forty years, australias external territories are also included in Australia Posts postcode system. Capital city postcodes were the lowest postcodes in their state or territory range, before new ranges for LVRs, however, postcodes with the same second number are not always next to each other. As an example, postcodes in the range 2200–2299 are split between the suburbs of Sydney and the Central Coast of New South Wales
5.
Melbourne
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Melbourne is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in Australia and Oceania. The name Melbourne refers to an urban agglomeration spanning 9,900 km2, the metropolis is located on the large natural bay of Port Phillip and expands into the hinterlands towards the Dandenong and Macedon mountain ranges, Mornington Peninsula and Yarra Valley. It has a population of 4,641,636 as of 2016, and its inhabitants are called Melburnians. Founded by free settlers from the British Crown colony of Van Diemens Land on 30 August 1835, in what was then the colony of New South Wales, it was incorporated as a Crown settlement in 1837. It was named Melbourne by the Governor of New South Wales, Sir Richard Bourke, in honour of the British Prime Minister of the day, William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne. It was officially declared a city by Queen Victoria, to whom Lord Melbourne was close, in 1847, during the Victorian gold rush of the 1850s, it was transformed into one of the worlds largest and wealthiest cities. After the federation of Australia in 1901, it served as the interim seat of government until 1927. It is a financial centre in the Asia-Pacific region. It is recognised as a UNESCO City of Literature and a centre for street art, music. It was the host city of the 1956 Summer Olympics and the 2006 Commonwealth Games, the main passenger airport serving the metropolis and the state is Melbourne Airport, the second busiest in Australia. The Port of Melbourne is Australias busiest seaport for containerised and general cargo, Melbourne has an extensive transport network. The main metropolitan train terminus is Flinders Street Station, and the regional train. Melbourne is also home to Australias most extensive network and has the worlds largest urban tram network. Before the arrival of settlers, humans had occupied the area for an estimated 31,000 to 40,000 years. At the time of European settlement, it was inhabited by under 2000 hunter-gatherers from three indigenous tribes, the Wurundjeri, Boonwurrung and Wathaurong. The area was an important meeting place for the clans of the Kulin nation alliance and it would be 30 years before another settlement was attempted. Batman selected a site on the bank of the Yarra River. Batman then returned to Launceston in Tasmania, in early August 1835 a different group of settlers, including John Pascoe Fawkner, left Launceston on the ship Enterprize
6.
Mansfield, Victoria
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Mansfield is a small town in the foothills of the Victorian Alps in the Australian state of Victoria. It is approximately 180 kilometres north-east of Melbourne by road, the population of Mansfield was 4,360 as at the 2011 census. Mansfield is the seat of the Mansfield local government area, Mansfield was formerly heavily dependent on farming and logging, but is now a tourist-centre. It is the town for the large Australia ski resort Mount Buller. It is associated with the high country tradition of alpine grazing, celebrated in the film made around Mansfield, near the now famous Craigs Hut, called The Man from Snowy River. Mansfield, originally known as Mount Battery, was at the boundary of a number of runs. Settlement came after the discovery of gold nearby and the Post Office opened on 1 January 1858, the railway to Mansfield arrived in the town from Tallarook in 1891, being closed on November 18,1978. The last passenger service was on May 28,1977, Mansfield is famous as part of the Ned Kelly Trail. Significant memorials include the Memorial to Police erected in the centre of the towns roundabout, Mansfield Cemetery is the burial ground for police officers slain by Ned Kelly and his gang at Stringybark Creek. Dr. John Pearson Rowe was a physician and squatter who owned the Loyola Run near Mansfield, reputed as the first Roman Catholic resident of the district, it is recorded that nearby Rochester was named after J. P. Rowe as he owned land on the Campaspe River. Rowe was a founder of the University of Melbourne. He fired a shot at a 14-year-old Ned Kelly accompanied by bushranger Harry Power in 1869, Rowe stood for the Upper House seat of the Murray District in 1859 and was defeated. In October 1878 Rowe supplied information to police Sergeant Kennedy on the whereabouts of Ned Kelly, acting on Rowes verified advice, Kennedy and his police party rode into the Wombat Ranges, where three of them were killed, and the Kelly Gang legend was born. Mansfield is very close to two lakes, Lake Eildon and Lake Nillahcootie. During the summer these sites are popular waterskiing destinations, the nearby Mount Buller and Mount Stirling offer attractions all year round. During winter they are visited for skiing, lifted and back country respectively, in the summer hiking and mountain biking are popular. Ski lifts operate year-round at Mount Buller allowing bikers to easily get to the top of mountain biking runs. The bushland around Mansfield is used for riding, trail biking
7.
Seymour, Victoria
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Seymour is a township in Mitchell Shire in the state of Victoria, Australia and is located 98 kilometres north of Melbourne. At the 2011 census, Seymour had a population of 6,360, the township services the surrounding agricultural industries as well as the nearby military base of Puckapunyal, which is an important training centre for the Australian Army. Other important sectors of employment in Seymour include retail, light engineering, agricultural support, medical services. The Taungurung people are the owners and inhabitants of the area Seymour now occupies. Specifically it is the land of the Buthera Balug clan who occupied the area when Europeans first settled the region in the early 1800s, in 1824, Hume and Hovell on their return from Port Phillip, camped by the Goulburn River not far upstream of Seymour. In 1836 Major Mitchell crossed the Goulburn at Mitchellstown and soon afterwards overlanders, the mail service between Melbourne and Sydney had been operating for just a year when it was found that a better route was available using the New Crossing Place. The Robert Burns Inn was operating there by the end of 1839, in 1841 the Government decided that the new crossing place was the likely spot for a town. Plans were laid before the Executive Council of NSW and Mitchell proposed the name Seymour which was approved on December 21st,1843, the town was named after Lord Seymour, the son of the 11th Duke of Somerset. The Post Office opened on 1 July 1844, the Australian Army first established a large training camp 4 kilometres east of the township during the First World War. During the Second World War, the eastern camp diminished in importance, as of 2008 Puckapunyal is the centre for the Australian Armys Land Warfare Development Centre and Headquarters Combined Arms Training Centre, with three of the Armys five Schools located on site. Additionally there are smaller training centres and facilities as well as a transport squadron based in Puckapunyal. The base is home to the Royal Australian Armoured Corps Memorial, Seymour College is the government school, providing classes from Prep to Year 12. The college was created in 2010 through a merger of Seymour Technical High School, formerly Seymour High School, Seymour Primary School Seymour East Primary School and Seymour Special School. Major building works currently underway will ultimately see the school located on the one site in Loco Street, Seymour, previously shared by STHS. St Marys College is a Prep to Year 10 Catholic school located in High Street, a number of fraternal, service and community organisations are active in Seymour including Freemasonry, Rotary, the Lions Club, Scouting, and Apex Clubs of Australia. Seymour has an excellent indoor multi-purpose sports centre and indoor swimming complex as well as a number of playing fields for athletics, cricket. The township has a number of successful and well resourced sporting clubs including the Seymour Turf Club, the Seymour campus of the Goulburn Ovens Institute of TAFE, opened in 1998, provides a variety of short courses and vocational education and training. Seymour is located adjacent to the junction of the Hume and Goulburn Valley Highway, Seymour station is served by regular V/Line hourly services to and from Melbourne Southern Cross Station as well as services on the Albury-Wodonga and Shepparton lines
8.
Local government in Victoria
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Local government in the Australian state of Victoria describes the 79 municipal districts often referred to as local government areas. They are constituted as cities, shires, rural cities and, in one case, in addition to the LGAs, there are also 10 coastal islands and ski resorts which are unincorporated areas and administered either by the state or management boards. At present, the councils not controlled by administrators have a total of 611 councillors, after the elections in October 2016, this number will increase due to changes in electoral structure and administrators leaving some councils. Up till 1994 there had been 210 LGAs, when Jeff Kennett, the councils of Benalla and Mansfield split subsequent to this to arrive at the current number. Both bodies continued after the creation of Victoria as a separate colony, Road districts were established pursuant to legislation passed in 1853. From 1862 many road districts became shires pursuant to the District Councils Bill 1862, to become a shire, the road district had to be over 100 square miles in size and have annual rate revenue of over £1000. There were 96 road districts or shires created by 1865, promotion to town or city status was dependent on the gross revenue of the council. Such promotion was not automatic, but it was granted often, the clauses have been amended many times by parliament, but since 2006 the Constitution Act has required a referendum to further alter them. Five shires became rural cities but were dissolved with the 1994 restructure, in 1992 there were 65 cities in Victoria, more than there were in England at the time despite a significantly lower population. In 1994, the Jeff Kennett government restructured local government in Victoria and his reforms dissolved 210 councils and sacked 1600 elected councillors, and created 78 new councils through amalgamations. In suburban Melbourne 53 municipalities were reduced to 26, the new local government areas were headed by commissioners appointed by the State Government, democratically elected councils did not return until 1996. The current total of 79 LGAs arose when the Shire of Delatite was split in 2002 into the Rural City of Benalla and the Shire of Mansfield. A new City of Sunbury was proposed to be created from part of the City of Hume after the 2016 council elections, all local government areas are governed in a similar fashion, with an elected council, one of whom is the mayor. The City of Melbourne and the City of Greater Geelong have a elected mayor. The average area of a district within the Melbourne metropolitan area is 285 square kilometres. In practice, this is understood as referring to the distribution between urban centres and rural areas. The term borough, used of the Borough of Queenscliffe, is not defined by the act but has retained for the single borough which survived the reforms of the 1990s. Under the repealed Local Government Act 1958, boroughs, towns and cities were defined on the basis of area, population, in practice, boroughs were and are small towns
9.
Shire of Murrindindi
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The Shire of Murrindindi is a local government area in the Hume region of Victoria, Australia, located in the north-east part of the state. It covers an area of 3,889 square kilometres and and it includes the towns of Alexandra, Buxton, Eildon, Flowerdale, Kinglake, Marysville, Molesworth, Strath Creek, Taggerty, Yarck and Yea. It was formed in 1994 from the amalgamation of the Shire of Alexandra, Shire of Yea, the Shire is named after the locality of Murrindindi, which is located near the geographical centre of the LGA. Parts of Murrindindi were badly affected by the 2009 Victorian bushfires, notably the towns of Marysville,106 people lost their lives across the Shire that day, including 38 in Kinglake and 34 in Marysville. The council is composed of five wards and five councillors, with one councillor per ward elected to represent each ward, the council meets in the council chambers at the council headquarters in the Alexandra Municipal Offices, which is also the location of the councils administrative activities. It also provides services at both its administrative centre in Alexandra, and its service centres in Kinglake and Yea. List of localities Murrindindi Shire Council official website Camping in Murrindindi Metlink local public transport map Link to Land Victoria interactive maps
