Ballarat is a city located on the Yarrowee River and lower western plains of the Great Dividing Range in the state of Victoria, Australia, approximately 105 kilometres (65 mi) west-north-west of Melbourne. It is the third most populous urban area in the state.

Also known as the Central Highlands, it is named so because of its gentle hills and lack of any significant mountains that are more common in the eastern sections of the Great Dividing Range. The city lies within a mostly gently undulating section of the midland plains which stretch from Creswick in the north, to Rokewood in the south, and from Lal Lal in the south-east to Pittong in the west.

The city is notable for its very wide boulevards: the main street is Sturt Street and is considered among one of the finest main avenues in Australia with over 2 kilometres of central gardens known as the Sturt Street Gardens featuring bandstands, fountains, statues, monuments, memorials and lampposts. Ballarat is home to many annual festivals and events that attract thousands of visitors, of which the oldest is the Ballarat Agricultural Show (run since 1859), currently held at the Ballarat Showgrounds. It is an official public holiday for residents of the city. A great many notable people's origins are in the Ballarat region, with the most prominent being high-ranking politicians: several former Prime Ministers of the country were either born in or lived in Ballarat and this was recognised by the city's Prime Minister's Avenue. Sir Robert Menzies, and James Scullin were both educated at Ballarat High School. John Curtin was born in nearby Creswick and his wife Elsie was born Ballarat.

Accommodation in Ballarat’s university residences

Ballarat is home to two universities — the University of Ballarat and the Ballarat campus of the Australian Catholic University. The former offers visitor accommodation during the university vacation periods in some of its residences. It should be understood that these residences and colleges are designed primarily for students and not children or adults expecting a high level of luxury. However, with this in mind, they do meet a level of comfort that we expect most visitors to be happy with, and we will welcome any feedback where this is not the case.

Getting to Ballarat

Road transport and the motor vehicle is the main form of transport. A network of state highways radiate from Ballarat and provide a direct road connection to Melbourne (approximately 90 minutes). It is also served by an extensive public bus service and Ballarat railway station is a major regional terminal for coach services. V/Line operates direct services to regional Victorian locations including Melbourne and Geelong as well as Adelaide. There is also a direct bus service to Melbourne's Tullamarine Airport. Interstate coaches from Greyhound Australia and Firefly Express Coaches stop at Ballarat on route between Melbourne and Adelaide. Ballarat is a major rail transport hub in Victoria, situated at the junction of the Ballarat line, Ararat line and Mildura lines; it has two passenger railway stations, Ballarat station and the suburban Wendouree station. From Ballarat station, V/Line operates high-speed VLocity trains east to Melbourne, west and Ararat and north to Maryborough.

Prior to European settlement of Australia, the Ballarat region was populated by the Wathaurong people, an Indigenous Australian people. The Boro gundidj tribe's territory was based along the Yarrowee River. The first Europeans to sight the area were an 1837 party of six mostly Scottish squatters from Geelong, led by Somerville Learmonth, who were in search of land less affected by the severe drought for their sheep to graze. Archibald Yuille named the area "Ballaarat", which he derived from local Wathaurong Aboriginal words for the area, “balla arat”. It is generally thought to mean 'resting place'.

The first publicised discovery of gold in the region was by Thomas Hiscock in 1851. The find brought other prospectors to the area; John Dunlop and James Regan struck gold at Poverty Point with a few ounces. Within days of the announcement of Dunlop and Reagan's find, a gold rush began and thousands of prospectors arrived at the Yarrowee valley, which became known as the Ballarat diggings. Yields were high, with the first prospectors in the area extracting around half an ounce, which was more than the average wage of the time, and five ounces of alluvial gold per day. As news of the Australian gold rushes had reached the world, Ballarat gained an international reputation as a rich goldfield. As a result, a huge influx of immigrants, including many from Ireland and China, gathered in a collection of prospecting shanty-towns around the creeks and hills. In just a few months, the population had swelled to over 20,000 people.

Civil disobedience in Ballarat led to Australia's first and only armed civil uprising, known as the Eureka Rebellion and colloquially referred to as the Eureka Stockade, which took place in 1854. The event, in which 22 miners died, is considered to be a defining moment in Australian history. The gold rush population peaked at almost 60,000 by 1858, made up of mostly male diggers,. Ballarat was proclaimed a city in 1871. Following the turn of the century, however, mining activity had slowed, Ballarat's growth had all but stopped and the city went into a period of decline. The Great Depression proved a further setback for Ballarat, with the closure of many institutions and causing the worst unemployment in the city's history. While deep, the depression was also brief and the interwar period proved a period of recovery for Ballarat, with a number of major infrastructure projects well underway, including a new sewerage system.