Explore Canberra
Canberra is the purpose built capital city of Australia, located in the Australian Capital Territory in the south-east of New South Wales.
It is a planned city, with national monuments, museums, and galleries all built around large man-made lakes.
A bush capital - Canberra is also a great place to enjoy the outdoors, with excellent cycling, gardens, parks, bushwalking and nature reserves.
Geography
Lake Burley Griffin divides central Canberra. The central shopping and commercial area, known as "Civic", on the north side and the parliamentary triangle and embassy area is on the south side. National institutions are likewise divided, examples being the National Museum of Australia and the Australian War Memorial on the north side and the National Library and National Gallery of Australia on the south side.
There are suburbs surrounding central Canberra, and also suburbs surrounding several outlying town centres. These town centres are Belconnen and Gungahlin to the north, and Tuggeranong and Woden to the south.
It has a population of about 350,000 people (400,000 including adjoining Queanbeyan).
People
Many people who live in Canberra are not originally from Canberra, having usually moved there to study or take up employment with the Australian Government.
A common pattern is that people from other parts of Australia move to Canberra, study or work for a few years and then return to their place of origin or move on to elsewhere. As this means a constant influx of new arrivals to Canberra, you should not be reluctant to ask for directions and the like from locals - they are more than used to it and usually only too happy to help.
Canberrans on the whole are easygoing, friendly and tolerant people who have the highest levels of education and income in Australia.
Ethnically, Canberra's population is more diverse than most regional areas of Australia, but nowhere near as culturally and linguistically varied as Sydney and Melbourne.
Canberra - Timezone: UTC +10 (Daylight Saving Time: UTC +10.5)
