Canberra
Canberra, the capital of Australia, was once a city with almost 750 possible names. In 1912 the government invited the public to make suggestions, and ideas arrived in large numbers. Proposals recorded while the city was being planned included Swindleville, Caucus City, Gonebroke, Wheatwoolgold and Sydmelperadbrisho. Others were Paradise, Eucalypta and Kangaremu.
None of those names won. Today Canberra has an estimated 484,630 residents as of 2025, which makes it Australia's largest inland city. It lies about 150 km from the east coast, in the shadow of the Brindabella Ranges. Its own name was already on local maps long before any capital was imagined.
How does a young nation build a capital from scratch? Who lived on this land first, and what does the word Canberra actually mean? What happened to the ambitious plan drawn up for the city, and what kind of place did it become? The answers begin with a name that three different spellings tried to capture.
The word Canberra comes from the Ngunnawal language, and it belonged to a local Ngunnawal or Ngambri clan. Early British colonists wrote the clan's name in several ways, including Canberry, Kanberri and Nganbra. In 1823 Joshua John Moore, the first European land-owner in the region, named his grant Canberry after these people.
Maps of the district carried "Canberry Creek" and "Canberry" from 1830. The form "Canberra" began to appear from around 1857. Other early spellings included "Canburry", "Kembery" and "Canbury". The last may have been influenced by a settlement of the same name in England.
What the word means is less settled. The Ngunnawal elder Don Bell and other local commentators have offered several readings over the years. These include "meeting place", "woman's breasts" and "the hollow between a woman's breasts". The breast readings are thought to come from Black Mountain and Mount Ainslie, two hills of similar height standing just northwest and northeast of the present city centre.
The city received its official name at midday on the 12th of March 1913. Lady Denman, wife of the Governor-General Lord Denman, announced it at a ceremony on Kurrajong Hill. That hill has since become Capital Hill, the site of the present Parliament House. The anniversary is still marked with Canberra Day, a public holiday in the ACT on the second Monday in March.
Two clans of Ngunnawal people were living around Canberra when the first British settlers described the district. The Canberry or Nganbra clan lived mostly near Sullivan's Creek, with ceremonial grounds at the foot of Galambary, now known as Black Mountain. The Pialligo clan held the land around what is now Canberra Airport. Other groups, including the Ngambri, Ngarigo and Ngambri-Guumaal, also claim a connection to the area.
These communities cared for the country with fire, farmed yams and hunted for food. Archaeologists have found inhabited rock shelters, rock paintings and engravings, burial places and camps. Quarry sites, stone tools and stone arrangements have turned up too. Artefacts suggest that people were active in the area as long as 21,000 years ago.
Galambary was an important meeting and business site, mainly for men's business. The Ngunnawal also used it for initiation, and the mountain itself is said to represent a boy growing into a man. According to the Ngunnawal and Ngambri, Mount Ainslie is mainly a place of women's business.
The Murrumbidgee River still carries living ceremony. Ngunnawal men gather on its banks and travel upstream as they receive their Totems and the matching duties of land management. In the Ngunnawal language Murrum means pathway and Bidgee means boss.
Beneath what is now Lake Burley Griffin, submerged limestone caves once held Aboriginal rock art. They were among the only sites of that kind in the region.
In October 1820 Charles Throsby Smith led the first British expedition into the area. Four more expeditions followed between 1820 and 1823. In June 1823 the explorer Mark John Currie produced the first accurate map, by which time the district was known as the Limestone Plains.
British settlement probably began in late 1823, when James Cowan formed a sheep station on what is now the Acton Peninsula. Cowan was head stockman for Joshua John Moore, who had received a land grant that year. Moore formally applied to buy the site on the 16th of December 1826. On the 30th of April 1827 a letter told him he could keep 1000 acres at Canberry.
Around 1825 James Ainslie arrived to set up a sheep station for the wealthy merchant Robert Campbell. A local Aboriginal girl guided him and showed him the fine lands of her Pialligo clan. Campbell renamed the property Duntroon, a Scottish title. His family built a dairy there in 1832, now regarded as the oldest standing European building in Canberra. They later added the stone house that serves today as the officers' mess of the Royal Military College.
The Campbells sponsored farming families to work their land, such as the Southwells of Weetangera. Henry Donnison established the Yarralumla estate in 1827, and the site is now the official residence of the Governor-General. In 1828 John Palmer employed Duncan Macfarlane to form the Jerrabomberra property. A year later John MacPherson founded Springbank and became the first British owner-occupier in the region.
The Anglican church of St John the Baptist in the suburb of Reid was consecrated in 1845. It is the oldest surviving public building in the city. Its churchyard holds the earliest graves in the district, and it has been called a "sanctuary in the city". Canberra's first school opened beside it the same year, to teach settlers' children, including the Blundell children from nearby Blundell's Cottage.
As the European presence grew, the Indigenous population dwindled. Contributing causes were the destruction of their society, removal from their lands, and introduced influenza, smallpox and measles, along with alcoholism.
Sydney and Melbourne each wanted to be the national capital, and the quarrel dragged on through the late 19th century. The compromise required the new capital to be built in New South Wales, at least 100 mi from Sydney. Melbourne would serve as the temporary seat of government until it was ready.
Surveyors weighed many sites, including Bombala, southern Monaro, Orange, Yass, Albury, Tamworth, Armidale, Tumut and Dalgety. Federal parliament chose Dalgety and confirmed it in the Seat of Government Act 1904. The New South Wales government refused to hand over the land, because it did not accept the site. In 1906 it agreed to cede territory, provided it lay in the Yass-Canberra region, which was closer to Sydney.
The newspaper proprietor John Gale then circulated a pamphlet titled 'Dalgety or Canberra: Which?' to every member of the seven state and federal parliaments. By many accounts it was decisive. Survey work by the government surveyor Charles Scrivener also mattered, and Canberra was selected in 1908. New South Wales ceded the district in 1911, and the Federal Capital Territory was established.
An international design competition opened on the 30th of April 1911 and closed on the 31st of January 1912. The Royal Institute of British Architects and the Institution of Civil Engineers boycotted it, along with their affiliated bodies across the British Empire. The cause was the Minister for Home Affairs, King O'Malley, who insisted that the final decision be his rather than a planning expert's. Even so, 137 valid entries arrived.
O'Malley appointed a three-member board to advise him, but its members could not agree. He sided with the majority and declared the design by Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin of Chicago, Illinois, the winner. Eliel Saarinen of Finland came second. Alfred Agache, a Brazilian living in Paris, came third.
A second, six-member board was then asked to advise on carrying out the winning design. On the 25th of November 1912 it said it could not support the Griffins' plan in full. It proposed its own composite, drawing on the three place-getters and on a fourth design by H. Caswell, R.C.G. Coulter and W. Scott-Griffiths of Sydney. Parliament endorsed that composite, and O'Malley formally approved it on the 10th of January 1913. Yet it was the Griffin plan that was ultimately carried forward.
In 1913 Walter Burley Griffin became Federal Capital Director of Design and Construction. On the 23rd of February, King O'Malley drove the first peg in the construction of the new city.
Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin drew on the garden city movement to design a city fixed to the landscape around it. Their plan lined up geometric motifs with Black Mountain, Mount Ainslie, Capital Hill and City Hill. The pattern can still be read from the summit of Mount Ainslie and from the Telstra Tower, the city's highest point.
Near Lake Burley Griffin, the major roads follow a wheel-and-spoke pattern rather than a grid. Griffin's proposal called for concentric hexagonal and octagonal streets fanning out from several radii. The outer suburbs, built later, do not follow that geometry.
The lake, formed by damming the Molonglo River, runs east to west and divides the city in two. A land axis crosses it at right angles, running north-northeast from Capital Hill along Anzac Parade to the Australian War Memorial. Seen from Capital Hill, the memorial stands directly at the foot of Mount Ainslie. At the opposite, southwestern end of that line lies Bimberi Peak, the highest mountain in the ACT, about 52 km away.
The straight edge of the central basin formed a water axis, which pointed northwest toward Black Mountain. A parallel municipal axis on the northern side became Constitution Avenue. It links City Hill in the Civic Centre with Market Centre and with the Defence precinct on Russell Hill. Commonwealth Avenue and Kings Avenue run from Capital Hill to City Hill and to Market Centre, forming the edges of the central basin. The area these three avenues enclose is the Parliamentary Triangle, the centrepiece of Griffin's work.
The Griffins also assigned spiritual values to Mount Ainslie, Black Mountain and Red Hill. They planned to cover each hill with flowers of a single primary colour representing its value. That part of the plan never came to life, because World War I slowed construction and planning disputes followed.
Those disputes cost Griffin his authority. A Royal Commission in 1916 ruled that certain officials had usurped his role, and his original plan was reinstated. Relations with the Australian authorities stayed strained, and funding was short. Prime Minister Billy Hughes dismissed him in 1920 with little built. Griffin had revised his plan, overseen the earthworks for the major avenues and established the Glenloch Cork Plantation.
On the 9th of May 1927 the Commonwealth parliament moved to Canberra, with the opening of the Provisional Parliament House. Prime Minister Stanley Bruce had taken up residence in The Lodge a few days earlier. Renovations at Yarralumla had begun in 1925, and in 1927 the property was officially dubbed Government House.
The depression of the 1930s and then World War II slowed planned development sharply. Roman Catholic and Anglican cathedrals planned for those years were never completed. In 1973 the parish church of St. Christopher in Manuka was remodelled into St Christopher's Cathedral, the only cathedral in Canberra.
In January 1939 the city hosted the 24th Meeting of ANZAAS, its largest event before the war. There were 1,250 delegates and not nearly enough beds, so a tent city rose on the banks of the Molonglo River. The Canberra Times called it "a signal event... in the history of this, the world's youngest capital city". H. G. Wells spoke and stayed a week as a guest of the Governor-General, Lord Gowrie. Canberra reached 108.5 degrees Fahrenheit (42.5 Celsius) on the 11th of January. On Friday the 13th of January the Black Friday bushfires killed 71 people in Victoria, and Wells toured threatened areas with the Governor-General.
After the war, critics called the capital a village with an ugly, disorganised scatter of buildings. A common jibe described it as "several suburbs in search of a city". Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies regarded its condition as an embarrassment. Over time his contempt turned to enthusiasm, and he fired two ministers charged with the city's development for poor performance. Between 1955 and 1975 the population grew by more than 50 per cent in every five-year period.
The National Capital Development Commission, formed in 1957 with executive powers, ended four decades of disputes over the shape of Lake Burley Griffin. Construction took four years and finished in 1964. The Australian National University expanded, and a new National Library, High Court and National Gallery rose within the Parliamentary Triangle. New districts followed. Woden Valley was first settled in 1964 and Belconnen in 1966. Weston Creek came in 1969, Tuggeranong in 1974, Gungahlin in 1991 and Molonglo Valley from 2010. In 1967 the Commission adopted the "Y Plan", which linked town centres by freeways in a rough Y shape, with Tuggeranong at the base.
On the 9th of May 1988 a larger, permanent Parliament House opened on Capital Hill as part of the bicentenary celebrations. In December 1988 the ACT received full self-government. After the first election on the 4th of March 1989, a 17-member Legislative Assembly sat for the first time on the 11th of May 1989. Rosemary Follett led the first government as Chief Minister and became Australia's first female head of government.
On the 18th of January 2003 bushfires swept parts of the city. They killed four people, injured 435 and destroyed more than 500 homes, along with the major research telescopes at Mount Stromlo Observatory. Celebrations of the naming centenary in 2013 included The Skywhale, a hot air balloon designed by the sculptor Patricia Piccinini. On the 7th of February 2021 it was joined by Skywhalepapa. The family was marked with themed pastries, local beer and an art pop song titled "We are the Skywhales".
The Australian Public Service accounted for about 25% of all jobs in Canberra as of November 2025. Public administration and safety made up 27.1% of Gross Territory Product in 2018-19 and employed 32.49% of the workforce. Health care, professional services and education each employ roughly a tenth of workers. The 2021 census put median personal income at $1,204 a week, against a national average of $805.
The people tend to be young and well educated. In 2021 the median age was 35, and only 13.8% of residents were over 65. A 2024 report found that 49% of ACT residents aged 15-74 held a bachelor's degree or higher, the highest share of any state or territory. At the 2021 census, 28.7% of inhabitants were born overseas, most often in India, England, China and Nepal.
The national institutions are the daily backdrop. The Parliamentary Triangle holds Parliament House, the High Court and the National Gallery of Australia. The Australian War Memorial, the Royal Australian Mint and the Australian Institute of Sport are close by. All foreign embassies in Australia are located here. The Institute, which has operated since 1981, produced the majority of Australia's team members and medallists at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney.
Every spring Commonwealth Park hosts Floriade, the largest flower festival in the Southern Hemisphere. The Canberra Raiders play rugby league, and the ACT Brumbies play rugby union. The Canberra Capitals have won nine national women's basketball titles.
The city has a mild oceanic climate. Frost is common in winter, and the last significant snowfall in the city centre was in 1968. On the 4th of January 2020 the temperature hit 44.0 C, the highest on record. Smoke from the 2019-2020 bushfires gave Canberra the worst air quality of any major city in the world on the 1st of January 2020, with an AQI of 7700.
The city has also tried to lead on the environment. In 1996 Canberra became the first city in the world to set a vision of no waste, targeting 2010. By early 2010 it was clear the zero-landfill goal would have to be delayed or revised. Plastic bags below a set thickness were banned from retail distribution from November 2011, and the city reached 100% renewable electricity in 2020. Even so, cars accounted for 76.5% of trips in 2017, though a light rail line linked the CBD with Gungahlin from the 20th of April 2019.
For many office workers near the lake, a favourite break is the "bridge to bridge" walk or run of about 5 km around Lake Burley Griffin. It takes about an hour. During the COVID-19 isolation of 2020 it grew so popular that the ACT Government introduced a rule called 'Clockwise is COVID-wise'.
Updated
Common questions
Where does the name Canberra come from?
The name Canberra comes from the Ngunnawal language and from a local Ngunnawal or Ngambri clan that early colonists called the Canberry, Kanberri or Nganbra tribe. Joshua John Moore named his grant Canberry in 1823, and the form Canberra began appearing from around 1857.
When was Canberra named and who announced it?
Lady Denman, wife of Governor-General Lord Denman, announced the name Canberra at midday on the 12th of March 1913 at a ceremony on Kurrajong Hill, now Capital Hill. Canberra Day is observed in the ACT on the second Monday in March.
Who designed Canberra?
Canberra was designed by the American architects Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin of Chicago, whose plan won an international competition with 137 valid entries. It is an entirely planned city, influenced by the garden city movement.
Why was Canberra chosen as the capital of Australia?
Canberra was a compromise between Sydney and Melbourne, Australia's two largest cities, after a long dispute over which should be the capital. The pamphlet 'Dalgety or Canberra: Which?' by John Gale, and survey work by Charles Scrivener, helped lead to its selection in 1908.
Who were the first people of the Canberra area?
The first peoples of the Canberra area include the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples. Artefacts suggest human activity in the region as long as 21,000 years ago.
How many people live in Canberra?
Canberra had an estimated population of 484,630 as of June 2025, including the whole of the ACT. It is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest Australian city by population.
What are the main industries in Canberra?
Public administration and safety is the main industry in Canberra, accounting for 27.1% of Gross Territory Product in 2018-19. The Australian Public Service provided about 25% of all jobs as of November 2025.
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- 242Football at the 2000 Sydney Summer GamesSR Olympics Sports — 2016
- 243NewsComplete draw for 2003 Rugby World CupAustralian Broadcasting Corporation — 2003
- 244NewsCanberra stun Glory to claim Westfield W-League titleW-League — 21 December 2014
- 245NewsWeaknesses exposed in VFL transfer plan2 August 1981
- 246NewsTassie wants in, so does the NT. Where will AFL teams 19 and 20 come from?Max Laughton — 5 March 2020
- 247GIANTS add gold for Canberra9 April 2013
- 249NewsUC Capitals win ninth WNBL ChampionshipAustralian Broadcasting Corporation — 4 March 2020
- 250NewsMobil marathon receives a boost to status, fieldsCanberra Times — 17 September 1994
- 251Australia's Capital City to Host Challenge Canberra 2023Challenge Canberra — 10 November 2022
- 253The Capital's premier tennis event returns for 2026Tennis ACT — 24 October 2025
- 254NewsHistory and successesAustralian Institute of Sport
- 255Cycling In CanberraACT Government
- 256Canberra Nature ParkACT Government — 14 December 2021
- 257Top ways to explore Lake Burley GriffinACT Government
- 258Welcome to Dragon Boat ACTDragon Boat ACT
- 260NewsACT Meteors rise into national women's cricket8 June 2009
- 261NewsBrumbies ready to fire up in Super 12 competition11 December 1995
- 263Joining NSW league means hard work15 April 1981
- 264NewsCanberra Raiders granted NRLW licence15 Jun 2022
- 265NewsCanberras best players on national stageSherwood, M — Canberra Times — 28 July 2008
- 266CBR Brave Granted Provisional LicenseAndrew McMurty — Australian Ice Hockey League — 5 March 2014
- 267A New Era Begins – Hockey One Is Here!Hockey Australia
- 268NewsCapitals begin title quest against Tigers3 April 1986
- 269Our hospitals and health servicesACT Government — 10 September 2025
- 270Canberra Clinical SchoolAustralian National University
- 272Press releaseServices transition at North Canberra Hospital and Clare Holland HouseACT Government — 3 July 2023
- 273Welcome to Calvary John James HospitalCalvary John James Hospital
- 274Calvary Bruce Private HospitalCalvary
- 275Welcome to National Capital Private HospitalNational Capital Private Hospital
- 276News15 years since hospital implosion tragedyFairfax Media — 13 July 2012
- 277NewsIncreasing pressure on ACT Chief MinisterFiona Reynolds — Australian Broadcasting Corporation — 5 November 1999
- 278Emergency ServicesACT Emergency Services Agency
- 279ACT Transport Strategy 2020ACT Government — 2020
- 280SpeedingACT Government — 28 March 2023
- 282The Canberra short term transportation studyMorris, R W et al. — 1976
- 283JournalA centenary review of transport planning in Canberra, AustraliaPaul Mees — 2014
- 284Canberrans, cars and congestion: public transport in the ACTJenny Stewart — University of New South Wales — 2016-01-20
- 285NewsImpact of traffic cameras on speed put under microscopeKirsten Lawson — Fairfax Media — 11 March 2014
- 286Taxi company 'not concerned' at losing monopolyAustralian Broadcasting Corporation — 3 February 2007
- 287NewsUber launches in ACT as Canberra becomes first city to regulate ride sharingAustralian Broadcasting Commission — 31 October 2015
- 288NewsUber goes live in Canberra with more than 100 drivers registeredTom McIlroy — Fairfax Media — 30 October 2015
- 289NewsACT chief minister launches regulated Uber in Canberra, calling it 'a real step forward'30 October 2015
- 290NewsFully-regulated Uber services start in CanberraFairfax Media — 30 October 2015
- 291Taxis
- 293New Canberra to Sydney bus service rolls in with $10 faresJames Coleman — 10 November 2025
- 294Transport in the Capital RegionNovember 2025
- 295AboutTransport Canberra
- 296AboutCDC Canberra
- 297Trams run near empty as light rail turns oneNewstate Media — 20 April 2020
- 298London Circuit to be raised for light rail stage 2ANewstate Media — 12 September 2019
- 299Press releaseRethink your routine: London Circuit to close from 2 DecemberACT Government — 22 November 2022
- 300Light Rail Stage 2A: City to Commonwealth ParkACT Government — 2 May 2025
- 301Travel pass agenciesCountryLink — 14 December 2009
- 302BookCanberra's Engineering HeritageWalter M. Shellshear — Engineers Australia
- 303NewsSydney to Canberra in 80 Minutes–by High-Speed TrainMichael Richardson — 19 July 2000
- 304Oz HSR Received?29 October 2002
- 305Govt considers rail link between eastern citiesBelinda Somer — Australian Broadcasting Corporation — 14 June 2001
- 306JournalRailways in the Australian Capital TerritoryB.T. MacDonald — May 1967
- 307High Speed Rail Study Phase 2 ReportAECOM et al. — Australian Government Department of Infrastructure and Transport — April 2013
- 308DeparturesCanberra Airport
- 309Designated International Airports in AustraliaAustralian Government Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development — 27 February 2013
- 310Fiji Airways to Start Flying to Canberra - Reward Flight15 April 2023
- 311JournalFarewell to FairbairnRichard Hogan — Royal Australian Air Force — July 2003
- 312Press releaseCanberra ranks highly in national reportSimon Corbell — 31 July 2013
- 313Transport for Canberra: Transport for a sustainable city 2012–31ACT Government — March 2012
- 314NewsCosts add up as more cyclists take to public roads and suffer tumblesPhillip Thomson — 19 March 2014
- 315NewsCycling campaign group Pedal Power slams ACT government on injury ratesJohn Thistleton — Fairfax Media — 25 June 2014
- 316E-scooters have rolled into Canberra - Our CanberraAct.gov.au — 28 August 2020
- 317E-scooters to expand across entire city23 October 2021
- 318Mount Majura Solar Farm powers up in ACTSolar Choice — 11 October 2016
- 319What we doACTEW
- 320About our businessActewAGL
- 321The Water NetworkActewAGL
- 322Fyshwick Sewage Treatment PlantActewAGL
- 323Lower Molonglo Water Quality Control CentreActewAGL
- 324Review of Contestable Electricity Infrastructure WorkshopIndependent Competition and Regulatory Commission — October 2003
- 325NewsThe Founding of Canberra14 March 1913
- 32620048. Kingston Powerhouse Historic Precinct (Entry to the ACT Heritage Register)ACT Heritage Council
- 327Press releaseAustralia's largest solar farm opens in the ACTACT Government — 3 September 2014
- 328NewsMugga Lane solar farm opens, bringing ACT to 35 per cent renewable energy2 March 2017
- 329NewsGovernment unveils 36,000 new solar panels at Williamsdale5 October 2017
- 3302015–16 Annual Feed-in Tariff ReportACT Government
- 331Press releaseACT sets 90% renewable energy target in lawACT Government — 4 November 2013
- 332Press releaseLarge scale feed-in tariff law expanded to meet 90% renewables targetACT Government — 27 February 2014
- 333Press releaseWind auction result delivers renewable energy and economic benefits to the ACTACT Government — 6 February 2015
- 334Press releaseHornsdale achieves new record price in ACT's second wind auctionACT Government — 21 December 2015
- 335Press releaseNew wind farm set to power more than just Canberra homesACT Government — 4 March 2016
- 336Press releaseTurning waste into energyACT Government — 7 March 2014
- 337Canberra's international relationshipsChief Minister's Department — 22 November 2018
- 338NewsCanberra adopts New Zealand capital as sister cityAustralian Broadcasting Corporation — 7 July 2016
- 339Hangzhou, ChinaACT Government Chief Minister and Treasury Directorate
- 340Dili, Democratic Republic of Timor-LesteACT Government Chief Minister and Treasury Directorate
- 341Memorandum of Understanding between Nusantara Capital City Authority and Australia’s National Capital AuthorityEmbassy of Australia in Indonesia — 27 February 2024
- 342Festival celebrates Canberra-Nara friendshipAustralian Broadcasting Corporation — 26 September 2008
- 343Canberra Nara ParkACT Government Territory and Municipal Services — 9 October 1999
- 344JournalThe Australian Capital Territory, Canberra the National Capital: Fifty Years of DevelopmentAustralian Bureau of Statistics — Australian Bureau of Statistics — 25 January 1963
- 345BookLake Burley Griffin, Canberra: Policy PlanNational Capital Development Commission — 1988
- 346BookThe Penguin Australia Road AtlasPenguin Books Australia — 2000
- 347BookUBD CanberraUniversal Publishers — 2007
- 348BookCanberra in Two Centuries: A Pictorial HistoryAlan Fitzgerald — Clareville Press — 1987
- 349BookCanberra 1913–1953Jim Gibbney — Australian Government Publishing Service — 1988
- 350BookCanberra 1820–1913Lyall Gillespie — Australian Government Publishing Service — 1991
- 351BookJack Fingleton: The Man Who Stood Up To BradmanGreg Growden — Allen & Unwin — 2008
- 352BookCanberra 1954–1980Eric Sparke — Australian Government Publishing Service — 1988
- 353BookAustraliaSarah Reid — Lonely Planet — 2024
- 354BookCanberra: History of Australia's National CapitalLionel Wigmore — Dalton Publishing Company — 1971
- 355BookThe Biology of Temporary WatersDudley Williams — Oxford University Press — 2006