44 Facts About Canberra

Canberra has been ranked among the world's best cities to live and visit.

Canberra's design is influenced by the garden city movement and incorporates significant areas of natural vegetation.

Canberra was guided to the region by a local Aboriginal girl who showed him the fine lands of her Pialligo clan.

Immediately after the end of the war, Canberra was criticised for resembling a village and its disorganised collection of buildings was deemed ugly.

Canberra was often derisively described as "several suburbs in search of a city".

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Canberra fired two ministers charged with the development of the city for poor performance.

Parts of Canberra were engulfed by bushfires on 18 January 2003 that killed four people, injured 435 and destroyed more than 500 homes as well as the major research telescopes of Australian National University's Mount Stromlo Observatory.

In 2014, Canberra was named the best city to live in the world by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and was named the third best city to visit in the world by Lonely Planet in 2017.

Canberra is often affected by foehn winds, especially in winter and spring, evident by its anomalously warm maxima relative to altitude.

Canberra is protected from the west by the Brindabellas which create a strong rain shadow in Canberra's valleys.

On 1 January 2020, Canberra had the worst air quality of any major city in the world, with an AQI of 7700 .

Canberra is a planned city and the inner-city area was originally designed by Walter Burley Griffin, a major 20th-century American architect.

Urban areas of Canberra are organised into a hierarchy of districts, town centres, group centres, local suburbs as well as other industrial areas and villages.

Development in Canberra has been closely regulated by government, both through planning processes and the use of crown lease terms that have tightly limited the use of parcels of land.

Many of Canberra's suburbs are named after former Prime Ministers, famous Australians, early settlers, or use Aboriginal words for their title.

In 1996 Canberra became the first city in the world to set a vision of no waste, proposing an ambitious target of 2010 for completion.

Canberra has the lowest rate of crime of any capital city in Australia as of 2019.

The gross average weekly wage in Canberra is $1827 compared with the national average of $1658 .

The median weekly rent paid by Canberra residents is higher than rents in all other states and territories.

Former RAAF Fairbairn, adjacent to the Canberra Airport was sold to the operators of the airport, but the base continues to be used for RAAF VIP flights.

Canberra has been the fastest-growing city in Australia in recent years, having grown 23.

In 2016 there were 132 schools in Canberra; 87 were operated by the government and 45 were private.

Canberra has the highest percentage of non-government school students in Australia, accounting for 40.

Canberra is home to many national monuments and institutions such as the Australian War Memorial, the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, the National Gallery of Australia, the National Portrait Gallery, the National Library, the National Archives, the Australian Academy of Science, the National Film and Sound Archive and the National Museum.

Many Commonwealth government buildings in Canberra are open to the public, including Parliament House, the High Court and the Royal Australian Mint.

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Canberra Museum and Gallery in the city is a repository of local history and art, housing a permanent collection and visiting exhibitions.

Canberra has many venues for live music and theatre: the Canberra Theatre and Playhouse which hosts many major concerts and productions; and Llewellyn Hall, a world-class concert hall are two of the most notable.

Canberra maintains sister-city relationships with both Nara, Japan and Beijing, China.

Canberra has friendship-city relationships with both Dili, East Timor and Hangzhou, China.

The Canberra Nara Candle Festival held annually in spring, is a community celebration of the Canberra Nara Sister City relationship.

Canberra has a daily newspaper, The Canberra Times, which was established in 1926.

The Canberra Vikings represent the city in the National Rugby Championship and finished second in the 2015 season.

Canberra has been bidding for an Australian Football League club since 1981 when Australian rules football in the Australian Capital Territory was more popular.

Canberra has numerous sporting ovals, golf courses, skate parks, and swimming pools that are open to the public.

Canberra has two large public hospitals, the approximately 600-bed Canberra Hospital—formerly the Woden Valley Hospital—in Garran and the 174-bed Calvary Public Hospital in Bruce.

Royal Canberra Hospital was located on Acton Peninsula on Lake Burley Griffin; it was closed in 1991 and was demolished in 1997 in a controversial and fatal implosion to facilitate construction of the National Museum of Australia.

Canberra's hospitals receive emergency cases from throughout southern New South Wales, and ACT Ambulance Service is one of four operational agencies of the ACT Emergency Services Authority.

The original plans for Canberra included proposals for railed transport within the city, however none eventuated.

Canberra is about three hours by road from Sydney on the Federal Highway, which connects with the Hume Highway near Goulburn, and seven hours by road from Melbourne on the Barton Highway, which joins the Hume Highway at Yass.

Canberra Airport provides direct domestic services to Adelaide, Brisbane, Cairns, Darwin, Gold Coast, Hobart, Melbourne, Perth, Sunshine Coast and Sydney with connections to other domestic centres.

Canberra Airport is, as of September 2013, designated by the Australian Government Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development as a restricted use designated international airport.

Canberra has one of the highest rates of active travel of all Australian major cities, with 7.

Canberra's water is stored in four reservoirs, the Corin, Bendora and Cotter dams on the Cotter River and the Googong Dam on the Queanbeyan River.

Electricity for Canberra mainly comes from the national power grid through substations at Holt and Fyshwick .