Victoria

Victoria is a state in the south-east of Australia.

Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands.

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Victoria is Australia's most densely populated state and its second-most populous state overall.

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Most of its population is concentrated in the area surrounding Port Phillip Bay, which includes the metropolitan area of its capital and largest city, Melbourne, which is Australia's second-largest city.

Port Phillip, is a large bay in southern Victoria, Australia; it is the location of Melbourne.

Geographically the smallest state on the Australian mainland, Victoria is bordered by Bass Strait and Tasmania to the south, New South Wales to the north, the Tasman Sea to the east, and South Australia to the west.

Bass Strait is a sea strait separating Tasmania from the Australian mainland, specifically the state of Victoria.

The Tasman Sea is a marginal sea of the South Pacific Ocean, situated between Australia and New Zealand.

Prior to European settlement, the area now constituting Victoria was inhabited by a large number of Aboriginal peoples, collectively known as the Koori.

With Great Britain having claimed the entire Australian continent east of the 135th meridian east in 1788, Victoria was included in the wider colony of New South Wales.

The meridian 135° east of Greenwich is a line of longitude that extends from the North Pole across the Arctic Ocean, Asia, the Pacific Ocean, Australasia, the Indian Ocean, the Southern Ocean, and Antarctica to the South Pole.

The first settlement in the area occurred in 1803 at Sullivan Bay, and much of what is now Victoria was included in the Port Phillip District in 1836, an administrative division of New South Wales.

The Port Phillip District was an historical administrative division of the Colony of New South Wales, which existed from September 1836 until 1 July 1851, when it was separated from New South Wales and became the Colony of Victoria.

Victoria was officially created as a separate colony in 1851, and achieved self-government in 1855.

Self-governance, or autonomy, is an abstract concept that applies to several scales of organization.

The Victorian gold rush in the 1850s and 1860s significantly increased both the population and wealth of the colony, and by the Federation of Australia in 1901, Melbourne had become the largest city and leading financial centre in Australasia.

The Federation of Australia was the process by which the six separate British self-governing colonies of Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia, and Western Australia agreed to unite and form the Commonwealth of Australia, establishing a system of federalism in Australia.

Australasia, a region of Oceania, comprises Australia, New Zealand, the island of New Guinea, and neighbouring islands in the Pacific Ocean.

A federation is a political entity characterized by a union of partially self-governing states or regions under a central government.

Melbourne also served as capital of Australia until the construction of Canberra in 1927, with the Federal Parliament meeting in Melbourne's Parliament House and all principal offices of the federal government being based in Melbourne.

Politically, Victoria has 37 seats in the Australian House of Representatives and 12 seats in the Australian Senate.

A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature or parliament.

House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entitles.

At state level, the Parliament of Victoria consists of the Legislative Assembly and the Legislative Council.

Victoria is currently governed by the Labor Party, with Daniel Andrews the current Premier.

Daniel Michael Andrews is an Australian politician who is the 48th Premier of Victoria, a post he has held since 2014.

The personal representative of the Queen of Australia in the state is the Governor of Victoria, currently Linda Dessau.

The Governor of Victoria is the representative in the Australian state of Victoria of its monarch, Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia and is one of the Governors of the Australian states.

Linda Marion Dessau AM has been the Governor of Victoria since 1 July 2015.

Local government is concentrated in 79 municipal districts, including 33 cities, although a number of unincorporated areas still exist, which are administered directly by the state.

In law, an unincorporated area or unincorporated community is a region of land that is not governed by its own local municipal corporation, but rather is administered as part of larger administrative divisions, such as a township, parish, borough, county, city, canton, state, province or country.

The economy of Victoria is highly diversified: service sectors including financial and property services, health, education, wholesale, retail, hospitality and manufacturing constitute the majority of employment.

Victoria's total gross state product is ranked second in Australia, although Victoria is ranked fourth in terms of GSP per capita because of its limited mining activity.

Gross state product, gross regional product or gross state domestic product is a measurement of the economic output of a state or province.

Per capita is a Latin prepositional phrase: per and capita.

Culturally, Melbourne is home to a number of museums, art galleries and theatres and is also described as the "sporting capital of Australia".

The Melbourne Cricket Ground is the largest stadium in Australia, and the host of the 1956 Summer Olympics and the 2006 Commonwealth Games.

The 1956 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XVI Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event which was held in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, in 1956, apart from the equestrian events, which were held five months earlier in Stockholm.

Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a cricket field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard-long pitch with a wicket sited at each end.

The Melbourne Cricket Ground, also known simply as "The G", is an Australian sports stadium located in Yarra Park, Melbourne, Victoria, and is home to the Melbourne Cricket Club.

The ground is also considered the "spiritual home" of Australian cricket and Australian rules football, and hosts the grand final of the Australian Football League each year, drawing crowds of approximately 100,000.

Australian rules football, officially known as Australian football, but also called Aussie rules, football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of eighteen players on an oval-shaped field, often a modified cricket ground.