Melbourne, Ranked the World’s Most Livable City.
Melbourne can refer to two different things. Most commonly, it means the Greater Melbourne urban area, which is made up of 31 local government areas (LGAs) stretching southwest from the foothills of the Great Dividing Range and extending across the entire Port Phillip Bay region, covering 2,453 square kilometers (947 square miles). Another definition refers specifically to the City of Melbourne local government area, centered on several neighborhoods between Melbourne’s central business district, the Docklands waterfront precinct, the racecourse, zoo, museums, and the Royal Botanic Gardens. Located east of the Yarra River estuary at the northern end of Port Phillip Bay, it serves as the commercial, medical, higher education, and sports hub of the entire Melbourne metropolitan area. Following administrative reforms in 1993, the CBD now has a population of about 20,000. As of June 2024, the greater metropolitan area had a population of 5.35 million—more than three-quarters of the state’s total population. Most residents live within 30 kilometers (19 miles) of the CBD, and the population in the eastern suburbs far exceeds that in the west.
From 1901 to 1927, Melbourne served as the capital of the Commonwealth of Australia. It is also the nation’s center for culture, business, education, entertainment, dining, sports, and tourism, earning it the nickname “Australia’s cultural capital.” Melbourne is also the heart of multicultural Australia, home to a large immigrant population, and it leads the country in trend-setting cultural fields such as fashion, art, music, television production, film, and dance, with influence that extends even beyond Australia. Melbourne is the birthplace of Australian rules football and hosts major international events such as the Australian Open and the Australian Grand Prix. It hosted the 1956 Summer Olympics and the 2006 Commonwealth Games, becoming the first city in the Southern Hemisphere to stage the Olympic Games. It is also the host city for the Melbourne Cup Carnival, as well as the grand finals of domestic leagues including the Australian Football League, the A-League, and the Australian Ice Hockey League.
In 2008, Melbourne was rated a “Gamma+ world city” by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network at Loughborough University in England. Since 2002, Melbourne has consistently ranked among the top three most livable cities in the world in The Economist’s annual rankings, and from 2011 to 2017 it held the No. 1 spot for seven consecutive years.