Melbourne is located in the south-eastern part of mainland Australia, and is the capital of the state of Victoria. It is situated on the large natural bay known as Port Phillip, with the city centre located at the estuary of the Yarra River at the northern-most point of the bay. Today, it is a centre for the arts, commerce, education, entertainment, sport and tourism, and is the birthplace of cultural institutions such as Australian film and television, Australian rules football, the Australian impressionist art movement, known as the Heidelberg School, and Australian dance styles, such as New Vogue and the Melbourne Shuffle. It is often referred to as the "cultural capital of Australia".

The city centre is well known for its historic and attractive lanes and arcades, the most notable of which are Block Place and Royal Arcade. Melbourne’s city centre also contains many significant historic buildings, such as the Royal Exhibition Building, the Melbourne Town Hall and Parliament House. The city is often referred to as Australia's garden city, as there is an abundance of parks and gardens, many close to the city centre, with a variety of common and rare plant species amid landscaped vistas, pedestrian pathways and tree-lined avenues.

The city celebrates a wide variety of annual cultural events and festivals of all types, including the Melbourne International Film Festival, Melbourne International Comedy Festival and the Melbourne Fringe Festival. Melbourne's largest film and television studio, Docklands Studios Melbourne, has hosted many international features, such as Ghost Rider, Knowing and Charlotte's Web, among others. Each summer, there is a Summer School in Film Making taught by Australia's leading filmmakers.

Getting around Melbourne

Melbourne has a very high dependency on cars, particularly in the outer suburban areas. Among the main highways feeding into the city are the Monash Freeway and the Hume Freeway, which links Melbourne and Sydney. The city has an excellent public transport system based mostly around trams and buses. The city has rail connections with regional Victorian cities, as well as direct interstate rail services to Sydney, Adelaide and other cities, which depart from Southern Cross Station in Spencer Street.

Melbourne has the largest tram network in the world and the trams are recognised as iconic cultural assets and a tourist attraction. Heritage trams operate on the free City Circle route and heritage restaurant trams can be found in the evening. Station Pier on Port Phillip Bay is the terminal for Spirit of Tasmania ferries, which cross the Bass Strait to Tasmania. The city has four airports, with Melbourne Airport at Tullamarine being the main international hub. Buses and taxis are the only forms of public transport to and from the airports.

Before the arrival of European settlers, the area was occupied for some 40,000 years by hunter-gatherers from three indigenous regional tribes, the Wurundjeri, Boonwurrung and Wathaurong. The first European settlement in Victoria was established in 1803 on Sullivan Bay, but this settlement was abandoned. It would be 30 years before another settlement was attempted: in 1835, the area that is now central Melbourne was explored by John Batman, a member of the Tasmanian Port Phillip Association, who negotiated a purchase of 600,000 acres (2,400 km²) with eight Wurundjeri elders. Batman selected a site on the northern bank of the Yarra River and returned to Launceston in Tasmania, but by the time a settlement party arrived to set up the village, a separate group organised and financed by John Pascoe Fawkner had already arrived aboard his ship the Enterprize and established a settlement at the same location. The two groups ultimately agreed to share the settlement. Batman's Treaty with the Aborigines was annulled by the New South Wales government. This meant the settlers were now trespassing on Crown land, but the government accepted the settlers' fait accompli and allowed the town (known at first by various names, including 'Batmania' and 'Dutergalla') to remain. In 1836 the settlement was named Melbourne after the then British Prime Minister William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, and it was then declared a city by Queen Victoria in 1847.

The discovery of gold in Victoria in 1851 led to the Victorian gold rush, and the city grew rapidly. By 1865, it had overtaken Sydney as Australia's most populous city. This economic boom peaked during the 1880s and Melbourne had become the richest city in the world. The brash boosterism that typified the city ended in 1891 with a severe depression of the city's economy. At the time of Australia's federation in 1901, Melbourne became the seat of government of the federation, where it stayed until 1927, when it was moved to Canberra. During World War II, Melbourne industries thrived on wartime production and the city became Australia's leading manufacturing centre.

The eyes of the world were on the city when it hosted the 1956 Summer Olympics. Melbourne remained Australia's main business and financial centre until the late 1970s, when it began to lose this primacy to Sydney. In 1992 the government began to revive the city’s economy and tourism and at this time the Australian Grand Prix moved to Melbourne from Adelaide.