Australian Capital Territory Information

As the name indicates, the Australian Capital Territory is the capital of Australia and it was formed in 1908 for its geographical position.

ACT is located between Sydney and Melbourne and it was created soon after Australia became a unified nation in 1901 when the country’s leaders decided the country required a capital that was free of political domination by existing states.
Because New South Wales and Victoria were pushing to be home of the new nation’s Federal Parliament, a compromise saw the ACT established as a neutral centre located between the major states.

The ACT was established as an administrative territory to house the nation’s new capital, Canberra. Today, Canberra is the headquarters of Australia’s Federal Government and the only city in the state.

The Australian Capital Territory is the smallest state with an area of only 2432 square kilometers and almost half of the territory is national park.

The capital city of Canberra was designed as the administrative centre for Australia and almost half of the city’s workers are employed by the Federal Government.
Canberra is a modern city and was designed by American architect Walter Burley Griffin.

The city is set on Lake Burley Griffin, a lake formed with the damming of the Molonglo River and the city is an attempt by its designer to create a city that blends with nature.

Canberra’s main landmark is Parliament House, built into Capital Hill and opened in 1988 to replace the original Parliament House built in 1927. The current Parliament House was opened by Queen Elizabeth and the building reflects Australia’s culture and history, featuring Australian art and crafts and using timbers from around the nation in its construction.

Canberra is a city with many parks, gardens and reserves and it features a number of significant buildings and monuments, including the Old Parliament House, Anzac Parade, the Australian War Memorial and the new National Museum of Australia.

The ACT is a relatively small area but has some impressive natural features, including the Murrumbidgee River flows from the Snowy Mountains, Mt Bimberi (only 318 metres lower than Australia’s highest peak) and the scenic Gibraltar Falls.

The ACT has the four distinct seasons of summer, autumn, winter and spring and each season can provide some weather extremes.

Winter is sometimes cold and frosty with snow in many parts of the state and temperatures often falling below freezing. Summer is warm with some periods of extremely hot weather with temperatures rising above 40C on occasions.
The ACT is only about 90 kilometres from north to south and 30 kilometres wide and is completely surrounded by New South Wales.

Though nearly 50 per cent of Canberra’s workforce is employed by the Federal Government, the ACT is an increasingly popular tourism destination and there are significant farming activities in the state.