What is Victoria, Australia?

The first of the Australian Colonies to have its own flag, Victoria’s flag is a blue field adorned with the five stars of white that form the shape of the constellation known as the Southern Cross, with St. Edward’s Crown above it. A Union Jack is shown in the upper left. The design was set in 1901.

Victoria had been inhabited by aboriginal peoples for 40,000 years before Europeans came. Although the British government forbade settling there, the 1830’s saw the crossing of the Bas Strait by the Henty family and John Batman, the latter of whom started the colony that became Melbourne, which grew even more after the discovery of gold nearby in 1851 led to a gold rush. Melbourne, on the southern coast, is now the capital and largest city in Victoria, and the second largest city in Australia. Other important cities in Victoria include Geelong, Ballarat, and Bendigo.

Victoria’s economy is closely tied to its oil and natural gas production, and it makes up nearly a quarter of Australia’s gross domestic product. In the agricultural realm, wheat and fodder are the main crops, and there are dairy, sheep, cattle, and cereal grain farms, as well as vineyards. Victoria lost its place as the locus of the Australian financial and cultural community to New South Wales at the end of the Twentieth Century, but has been gaining ground again in the Twenty-First Century. Nevertheless, it remains the leading dairy state in Australia.