Timeline of Melbourne history

Hoddle Grid is the contemporary name given to the approximately 1-by-0.5-mile (1.61 km × 0.80 km) grid of streets that form the Melbourne central business district, Australia. Bounded by Flinders Street, Spring Street, La Trobe Street, and Spencer Street, it lies at an angle to the rest of the Melbourne suburban grid, and so is easily recognisable. It is named after the surveyor Robert Hoddle, who marked it out in 1837 (to Lonsdale Street, extended to La Trobe Street the next year), establishing the first formal town plan. This grid of streets, laid out when there were only a few hundred settlers, became the nucleus for what is now Melbourne, a city of over five million people.

The Melbourne central business district (also known colloquially as simply "The City" or "The CBD") is the city centre and main urban area of the city of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, centred on the Hoddle Grid, the oldest part of the city laid out in 1837, and includes its fringes. It is not to be confused with the larger local government area of the City of Melbourne which includes this area and the inner suburbs around it. The boundaries are not precise as it is not currently an official area, but the area of boundaries of the Australian Bureau of Statistics Statistical Area Level 2 'Melbourne' represents the commonly understood area of what is usually meant by 'the 'CBD' or 'the city'; this includes the Hoddle Grid, plus the area of parallel streets just to the north up to Victoria Street including the Queen Victoria Market, but not the Flagstaff Gardens, and the area between Flinders Street and the Yarra River. The Central City is the core of Greater Melbourne's metropolitan area, and is a major financial centre in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region. It is home to Melbourne's famed alleyways and arcades and is renowned for its distinct blend of contemporary and Victorian architecture, and home to five of the six tallest buildings in Australia. In recent times, it has been placed alongside New York City and Berlin as one of the world's great street art meccas, and designated a "City of Literature" by UNESCO in its Creative Cities Network.

The General Post Office, situated on the corner of Elizabeth and Bourke streets in Melbourne, is the former General Post Office for Victoria, Australia.Still owned by the Federal Government, the building appears on all major heritage lists: the National Trust of Victoria (Australia), the Commonwealth Heritage List, and the state of Victoria where it is noted for its fine and impressive architecture and historical significance. The location of the post office is still used as a point of reference for the measure of distances from the centre of Melbourne.

The Electoral district of City of Melbourne was one of the original sixteen electoral districts of the old unicameral Victorian Legislative Council of 1851 to 1856; Victoria having been made a separate colony in Australia in the former year. The Electoral district of City of Melbourne's area contained the North Melbourne and part of Jika Jika parishes, and was bound in part by Merri Creek, Moonee Ponds and Hobson's Bay.William Westgarth had been a representative in the New South Wales Legislative Council for the City of Melbourne, and topped the poll for this new district in Victoria. From 1856 onwards, the Victorian parliament consisted of two houses, the Victorian Legislative Council (upper house, consisting of Provinces) and the Victorian Legislative Assembly (lower house).

The Distorted Music Festival was an Australian electronic music festival held at Melbourne's Brown Alley on 10 December 2005.It showcased electronic artists who are not generally considered to be mainstream. It covered the musical genres of industrial, noise, power noise, breakcore, IDM and glitch. The philosophy of the festival is to bring to Australia international acts who would otherwise never play in the country. The festival also showcases local Australian artists, giving them the chance to play alongside the big names in the scene.

Festival Melbourne2006 was a twelve-day cultural event which ran concurrently with the 2006 Commonwealth Games in the Australian city of Melbourne.

The City of Melbourne is a local government area in Victoria, Australia, located in the central city area of Melbourne. In 2018 the city has an area of 37 square kilometres (14 sq mi) and had a population of 169,961. The city's motto is "Vires acquirit eundo" which means "She gathers strength as she goes."The current Lord Mayor is Sally Capp, who was elected in a by-election following the resignation of Robert Doyle on 4 February 2018. The Melbourne City Council (MCC) holds office in Melbourne Town Hall.

385 Bourke Street (also known as the State Bank Centre) is a high-rise office building located in Melbourne, Australia. It is the former head office of the State Bank of Victoria and Commonwealth Bank of Australia. It is located at 385 Bourke Street on the corner of Bourke and Elizabeth Streets. The lower levels of the building are the Galleria shopping centre. Major tenants in the building are EnergyAustralia, and Industry Superannuation fund UniSuper.

Melbourne is considered to be Australia's garden city, and Victoria as the Garden State. There is an abundance of parks and gardens close to the CBD with a variety of common and rare plant species amid landscaped vistas, pedestrian pathways, and tree lined avenues. The first superintendent of the Port Phillip region, Charles La Trobe, set aside large tracts of land around the city for open space, parkland and gardens. Much of this land has since been excised for public infrastructure like sporting complexes, railways, hospitals and other public buildings, and also for residential development, but a substantial amount has remained. This allowed landscape designer Clement Hodgkinson and Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne, William Guilfoyle, to landscape many of the parks and gardens. Many of these parks and gardens are within easy walking distance of the central business district.

Deva House is a 1926 commercial building in Melbourne, Australia designed by Harry Norris, one of the most prolific architects in the city during the period from 1920 to 1930, and noted for his Art Deco buildings, incorporating both emerging Australian and American architectural styles.

The Royal Arcade is a historic shopping arcade in the central business district of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Opened in 1870, it connects Bourke Street Mall to Little Collins Street, with a side offshoot to Elizabeth Street. It is the oldest surviving arcade in Australia, known for its elegant light-filled interior, and the large carved mythic figures of Gog and Magog flanking the southern entry. Along with Melbourne's other Victorian era arcade, the nearby Block Arcade, it is a tourist icon of the city, and forms part of the network of lanes and arcades in the CBD. The arcade is listed on the Victorian Heritage Register, as well as by the National Trust of Australia. It also forms part of Melbourne's Golden Mile heritage walk.

Little Bourke Street (abbreviated to Lt. Bourke St) in Melbourne's CBD runs roughly east–west within the Hoddle Grid. It is a one-way street heading in a westward direction. The street intersects with Spencer Street at its western end and Spring Street at its eastern end. Melbourne's Chinatown, which extends between the corners of Swanston and Exhibition Streets, is a major feature of the street. Major department stores Myer and David Jones along with upscale shopping centre Emporium Melbourne have entrances on Little Bourke Street with stores Coach, Michael Kors, Ted Baker, Mulberry and Furla within the centre having frontages onto Little Bourke between Swanston Street and Elizabeth Street. The back entrance of GPO Melbourne is also on this street. Higher-end restaurants are found on the stretch between Exhibition Street and Spring Street.