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Ballarat is a city in the state of
Victoria, Australia, approximately 105 kilometres
(65 mi) north-west of the state capital Melbourne.
It is the largest inland centre and the third most
populous city in the state. The estimated urban area
population is 94,088. It is the administrative
centre for the City of Ballarat, which encompasses
both the urban area and outlying towns spanning an
area of 740 square kilometres (290 sq mi).
Inhabitants of Ballarat are known as Ballaratians.
It was named by Scottish settler Archibald Yuille
who established the sheep run called Ballaarat in
1837 with the name derived from local Wathaurong
Aboriginal words for the area, balla arat, thought
to mean 'resting place'.
Ballarat is one of the most significant Victorian
era boomtowns in Australia. Gold was discovered in
Poverty Point on 21 August 1851 and the area of
Ballarat was later found to be a rich alluvial field
where gold could easily be extracted. News of the
finds intensified the Victorian gold rush bringing
over 10,000 migrants to the city from around the
world within a year and transforming it from a
station to a major settlement in the newly
proclaimed Colony of Victoria. Australia's first
gold stamp mill was established at Ballarat in 1854.
Ballarat was the site of the Eureka Rebellion, the
only armed civil uprising in Australian history
which took place on 3 December 1854 and an event
controversially identified with the birth of
democracy in Australia. Many significant Australian
cultural icons are also a legacy of Ballarat's gold
rush boom. The rebellion's symbol, the Eureka Flag
has become a national symbol and is held at the
Ballarat Fine Art Gallery, Australia's oldest and
largest regional gallery. Other nationally
significant heritage structures include the Ballarat
Botanical Gardens, established 1857, the best
example of a regional botanic gardens in Australia
with the greatest concentration of public statuary
including the official Prime Minister's Avenue; the
longest running lyric theatre building, Her
Majesty's, established 1875; the first municipal
observatory, established 1886; and the earliest and
longest memorial avenue, the Avenue of Honour,
established between 1917 and 1919.
Ballarat's prosperity continued until late in the
19th Century, when its importance relative to both
Melbourne and Geelong faded with the slowing of gold
extraction. It has endured as a major regional
centre hosting the rowing and kayaking events from
the 1956 Summer Olympics. It is the commercial
capital of the Central Highlands and the largest
city in the Goldfields region of Victoria – a
significant tourist destination. Ballarat is known
for its history, culture and its well preserved
Victorian era heritage.
On 21 August 1851, John Dunlop and James Regan
struck gold at Poverty Point with a few ounces but
within days of the announcement prospectors rushed
the area. As the Victorian gold rush gathered pace,
numerous alluvial and deep mining leads sprang up in
the Ballarat district. The Ballarat goldfields had
gained an international reputation as a rich
goldfield and a huge influx of immigrants from
around the world included many from Ireland and
China gathering in a collection of prospecting
shanty towns around the creeks and hills. Several
other notable gold fields were established in the
wider area including the Berringa, Clunes, Creswick,
Talbot and Enfield but the Ballarat district was the
most important settlement in the area and the
colony's second largest settlement.
The first Post Office opened on 1 November 1851.[13]
Parts of the district were first surveyed by William
Urquhart as early as October 1851. By 1852 his grid
plan and wide streets for land sales in the new
township of West Ballarat contrasted markedly with
the existing narrow unplanned streets, tents and
gullies of the original East Ballarat settlement.
Battle of the Eureka Stockade. J. B. Henderson
(1854) WatercolourCivil disobedience in Ballarat led
to Australia's first and only armed civil uprising,
the Eureka Rebellion (colloquially referred to as
the Eureka Stockade) which took place in Ballarat on
3 December 1854. The event, in which 22 miners died,
is considered to be a defining moment in Australian
history.
The main street, Lydiard Street in 1857 looking west
from the government camp. The post office, formerly
situated on the southwest corner of Mair Street is
on the rightDuring the 1860s Ballarat prospered on
gold mining. Confidence of the city's early citizens
in the enduring future of their city is evident in
the sheer scale of many of the early public
buildings, generous public recreational spaces, and
opulence of many of its commercial establishments
and private housing. The railway came to the town
with the opening of the Geelong-Ballarat line in
1862, As Ballarat grew, the region's original
indigenous inhabitants were quickly expelled to the
fringe and by 1867 few at all remained.
1870s: A city emerges
Ballarat was proclaimed a city in 1871. During the
period from the 1880s to the early 20th century
Ballarat made a successful transition from a gold
rush town to industrial age city. A direct railway
to Melbourne was completed in December 1889. Many
industries and workshops that had been established
as a result of manufacturing and servicing for the
deep lead mining industry.
The intersection of Lydiard and Sturt Street in 1899
was the heart of a bustling city of trams, horses
and pedestrians.During 1901, the Duke of Cornwall
and York, later King George V and Duchess journeyed
by train on 13 May from Melbourne to Ballarat .
Ballarat lies at the foothills of the Great Dividing
Range in Central Western Victoria. Also known as the
Central Highlands, it is named so because of its
gentle hills and lack of any significant mountains
that are more common in the eastern sections of the
Great Dividing Range. The city lies within a gently
undulating section of the midland plains which
stretch from Creswick in the north, to Rokewood in
the south, and from Lal Lal in the south-east to
Pittong in the west. These plains are made up of
alluvial sediment and volcanic flows, and contain
large areas of rich agricultural soils. A large
feature of the city is the man-made Lake Wendouree
(formerly Yuille’s Swamp), around which many of the
inner suburbs are situated. The central city is
situated low in the valley of the Yarrowee catchment
and surrounded by hills and the skyline is visible
only from the hills and the lower lying inner
eastern suburbs.
There are numerous densely forested areas around
Ballarat and large bodies of water including the
White Swan Reservoir and other lakes, rivers and
creeks which are used for urban water use and
agriculture.
There are still thought to be large, undiscovered
gold reserves around the Ballarat region, with
investigations being made by local and national
companies to extract potentially as much gold as the
Gold Rush days in the mid 1800s.
Settlement patterns around Ballarat consist of small
villages and country towns, some with less than a
few thousand people.
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